It’s only Tuesday, but the week has seen its fair share of excuses, hasn’t it?

The list includes the commander-in-chief, a few millionaire athletes and a disgraced local official whose misdeeds, both admitted and alleged, have driven people to disbelief.

On Sunday, President Barack Obama said the U.S. “dropped the ball” in its assessment of the terrorist group ISIS. His comments to 60 Minutes were aimed at the intelligence community, which he intimated should have been able to detect what’s been going on in Syria since the fall of 2011 when Moammar Khadafy’s death was supposed to be some type of positive domino effect. It hasn’t, and last week’s shocking beheading of a woman in Oklahoma by a disgruntled, obviously insane co-worker reminds us how uber-terrible the 1940s could have been had the Nazi sympathizers in the U.S. been armed with social media.

Here in Vicksburg, we have the case of former circuit clerk Shelly Ashley-Palmertree. Special Judge Henry Lackey sentenced her Monday to five years in jail for embezzling $12,000 from her office’s holding accounts on two separate occasions in 2012. I had the honor of witnessing the former Madame Clerk — one of her more printable nicknames — make her statement to the court. It was an apology delivered with all the sincerity of a middle-school child rushing through their multiplication tables so they can go play outside.

“I want to apologize mainly to the citizens of the county who trusted in me,” she said. “And to the Board of Supervisors that this happened.” At this point, all I could think after this excuse was that Larry Ashley needs to go enjoy a stiff drink somewhere. He’s a good candidate for the Ray Lewis Award for Lucky Escapes, if such an honor existed.

Speaking of football, and of excuses so far this week, we have the black and gold. Both teams that sport such colors, too — the Saints and the Steelers.

Both teams lost games they expected to win and face uphill climbs to make the playoffs this year. Both fan bases are highly irritated. A certain fan whose mug appears atop this column resorted to watching doughnut artisans ply their craft on the Cooking Channel to salvage his Sunday night entertainment. Coaches who caused the respective messes were honest to the media.

“The bottom line is that we are an undisciplined group,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said after losing at home to the hapless Tampa Bay Bucs on Sunday. “We are too highly penalized. Obviously, we are not coaching it. We are allowing it to happen.”

Saints coach Sean Payton, whose L’s have been few since 2006 but always seem to coincide with some memorably bad play calls, was honest about his impatience on a botched fake punt.

“That’s on me, that’s not (Pierre) Thomas, that’s not (Travaris) Cadet,” Payton told reporters. “That’s a play designed for misdirection. Dallas was in a punt safe, and I kind of felt like they would be. Really, that’s on me being impatient.”

Score one for the coaches over the politicos in the honesty category there. If only we demanded such daily affirmations for public officials.

If only.

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Danny Barrett is a reporter and can be reached by email at danny.barrett@vicksburgpost.com or by phone at 601-636-4545.