Americans love a redemption story, especially one that reassures liberal America that right-wing jackasses just need a little education to see the light and renounce their bigoted pasts. Inevitably, then, there was widespread swooning in the denouement of Tuesday's hearing when Stephen Ayres, an insurrectionist who testified about his January 6 regrets, approached four police officers injured in the riot to apologize.
An "extraordinary moment," is how Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post described it. "Somewhere in here is our way out of this," comedian Chip Franklin tweeted. Former Democratic Senator from Missouri Claire McCaskill gushed that Ayres "had the class to apologize" and "the courage to come forward and admit he was duped."
