Whenever a public apology starts with a phrase such as "If my remarks offended anyone," the person speaking probably failed to grasp the problem.

Clearly that's true for state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, whose apology for making insensitive comments about Indian tribes was only slightly less offensive than the comments themselves.

It all started when Bruno discussed his reasons for resisting a land claim settlement with the Cayuga Nation in part because of the tribe's internal leadership dispute: "The chief and some of the others who sit around the campfire, or whatever they do, split. OK? So they are not unified. If they're not unified, we're not going to move for them. And I don't say that disparagingly. That's what we do in government now. We don't sit around the campfire, we sit around a table with the lights and the daylight doing on-time budgets."

Comments like these undermine the valid arguments - made by this newspaper and plenty of other observers with an interest in this issue - for resisting land claim settlements and casino deals.

Understandably, tribes did not appreciate Bruno's take on the situation. A lawyer for the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne, Tim Coulter, took Bruno to task for making the comments a week after he blocked a bill for a Mohawk land claim settlement. Coulter said Bruno was looking out for his son, who's a lobbyist for an out-of-state tribe also trying to secure a land claim deal.

A few days later, Bruno made his apology. But he went on to say that his remarks were "just as unfortunate" as those made by tribal officials "who seek to distort my position on casinos and to attack me and my family."

So making ignorant, borderline-racist comments about Indians is on the same level with questioning the role the majority leader's lobbyist son has in Albany?

Bruno once again has shown how he has lost touch with the people of this state. Perhaps he is still the folksy, charming "Senator Joe" to the people in his district, but more and more, his arbitrary power wielding and knee-jerk reactions to attack those who question him have worn thin everywhere else.