Reading Their Minds: Politicians And Others Of Such Ilk

I caught a conversation this week about a politician and the way things played out for him. Leaks inside President Trump's administration have been a running fight, and they haven't stopped. One of his close advisors let his private opinion of what the administration was getting wrong reach someone on the left. He apparently forgot to say the conversation was off the record, and out it went.

Around the same time, another former Trump staffer dropped some genuinely obscene remarks about a colleague in the White House, right before he lost his job. Did either of these men understand what they were doing? Both had spent time handling the press and managing the very leak problem they then added to.

My sense is that whatever concerns an administration's business, the President decides what gets released, with input from staff he actually trusts. If an advisor has a worry, wouldn't the sensible move be to request time with the President and raise it privately, rather than hand it to a reporter? Let the President be the one to go public, if anyone does.

The pattern keeps repeating with people who were recently fired or who walked out. Plenty of ordinary workplaces expect discretion: banks, law offices, mental health facilities. You keep quiet about what happens inside. One staffer even took notes during a conversation with the President and had a friend pass them to the press, and this too came just ahead of his firing. That smells like sour grapes to me. Where did ethics and respect for the law go while a person is in public service?

If I can see what's going on, I'm not sure why it escapes everyone else. Regular people spot it. Do they imagine the rest of us are fools, easy to fool and push around? There are times when silence is simply smarter, particularly if you want a thing to stay secret. And isn't it supposed to be the media's job to catch these moves and work out the story behind them?

The people of the lie make such skilled manipulators for one reason: they carry no conscience.

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