Rob seems to have confused admitting to your mistakes with taking responsibility for them. In recovery speak, he's started Step 8 (making a list of all people harmed) and decided to skip Step 9 (making direct amends). Now, in reality though he has also skipped Step 8, because he is supposed to make a list that includes every person who he has harmed. He seems to think that a blanket apology for everyone he *may* have offended counts. It doesn't count in the court of public opinion, and more importantly it doesn't count towards his recovery. There are reasons behind Step 8 and Step 9, and it isn't so that an individual get forgiveness. The aim is to admit to and take responsibility for your actions, allowing you to move forward without the wreckage of the past weighing you down. An individual learns more about humility in the process.
To start, in order to take responsibility for something specific he admitted to in his recent interview, getting drunk at work, the appropriate amends would be to resign. Now, the caveat is that he was lying because the ITO shows he did in fact at least smoke weed in his office.
Rob Ford is very much still in the contemplation stage of recovery/change. He likely wants the bad stuff to stop happening, but doesn't yet want to give up the substances completely.
