Admitting mistakes

Matthew Yglesias has a post based on what he reports was the main applause line for Tim Pawlenty at CPAC.  It involved criticizing the President for running around the world apologizing for our country.  Matt follows with:

This is interesting, in part, because I don’t even remember the president apologizing for our country. That conservatives are really pissed off at Obama for raising taxes is explained, in part, by the fact that bills he’s signed into law do in fact schedule large tax increases. But rage at the president’s non-existent habit of apologizing is a pure psychological manifestation of acute sensitivity around this issue. It’s a very pure distillation of the raw, hysterical, absurd atavistic nationalism that lies at the core of contemporary conservatism.
I mean, I assume Pawlenty doesn’t raise his kids to never apologize for their conduct. Apologizing is the right way to respond to wrongdoing. Sometimes I make factual errors in my posts and I try to apologize for them. I stepped on a woman’s foot by accident yesterday and apologized. That’s life. You apologize. Is it seriously an article of faith of the American conservative movement that the American government has never done anything worth apologizing for? That’s the official view of the political movement that allegedly thinks the other movement is too statist? When I heard that tear gas that Egyptian police fired at protestors in Tahrir Square was made in America and purchased with my tax dollars, I felt kind of sorry. But evidently real rightwingers are devoid of human compassion or any ethic of responsibility.

I'm not sure what to make of this conservative inability to admit mistakes or apologize.  To me, the strangest thing about the Bush administration was it's complete inability to admit any mistake, or apologize for such.  I can't decide if they feared looking weak and giving their opponents something to take advantage of, or if they really didn't believe that they made mistakes.  Heck, the Pope has the mantle of Infallibility to point at, and the last couple of Popes have done a lot of apologizing, though still not enough.
Sometimes it was painfully obvious that politics trumped common sense with the Bush Administration.  Throughout 2005 and 2006, as Iraq spiralled out of control, the administration claimed that there were enough troops in Iraq.  Immediately before the midterm elections, we were assured that there was no need to change course.  Immediately after the Republicans lost control of Congress, Rumsfeld was sacked, and planning began for the surge.  Curious timing.  I guess I can't take a party seriously as a governing party if they don't have either the confidence or the self-awareness to admit mistake. 
President Obama has been a breath of fresh air in this regard.  Even in minor matters, like the 'Skip' Gates affair, the president is willing to take blame for overreacting.  In the health care debate, he didn't just point fingers at Republicans, he took blame for the bill stalling.  I think the man has some sizable flaws, he has taken over many of the worst aspects of the Bush administration, and even made some worse, but his willingness to question himself and admit mistake is a great improvement from Team Bush.