Someone, guilty of a wrongdoing, defends his position by reminding the accusing party that, at some point in time, s/he was guilty of the same wrongdoing too. This is instead of making an apology or a promise to change behavior in the future. What do we call such a discourse?
Speaker A: You treated the audience with disrespect (The guilty part does not deny the accusation)
Speaker B: Yes I did, but did you never do the same thing? (Suggesting that Speaker A isn't in a position to make accusations)
Now, I have considered using many phrases and expressions like "fault-finding," "blame game," "finger pointing," "cherry-picking," and "apologetics." While they are 'close' to what I want to say, they all roughly connote an act of defense by denying guilt and laying it on someone else (usually the accuser), as in "You did it, not me!" What I am looking for, however, is a word/phrase suggesting that the accused party indeed admits guilt, but tries to ameliorate his position by saying something like "Hey, but I am not the only one. You did it too."
