El Sayed tries to build bridge with Jewish community with Temple Israel apology

Months. It took months for Abdul el Sayed to get around to apologizing for what he said after a terrorist attack on a synagogue, and he only did it once the Senate primary made the political cost of staying quiet too high. That timeline tells you most of what you need to know. This isn't contrition arriving on its own schedule. It's contrition arriving on the campaign's schedule.

We'd have more patience for the apology tour if it looked like something other than a tour. Standing in front of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus and saying the right words now, after a spring and summer of grief and criticism from the community he's addressing, is the easiest kind of politics there is. It costs nothing and it's aimed at exactly the audience he needs before a general election. If he believed those original comments were wrong the week he made them, Michigan's Jewish community didn't need to wait for a caucus event to hear it.

None of this means people can't come around on how they talk about a terrorist attack on a house of worship. They can, and they should be allowed to grow. But voters are entitled to ask why growth showed up right when the polling and the primary calendar demanded it. An apology that waits for the right room and the right moment isn't really an apology, it's a campaign strategy.

Michigan Jewish voters lived through those months. They remember what wasn't said when it mattered. A speech now doesn't erase that, and it shouldn't be treated like it does just because the candidate finally found the microphone he needed.