Boss-Bashing Backfires

My Aunt Jan has told me several times that I need to write a book about politics in Washington, something that might - with wit, charm, and just enough mendacity to keep it interesting - shed light on what life inside the Beltway is like to the rest of the country.

I told her I'd think about it when I had enough material. Some day. (I've only lived here for four years.) 

Of course, sometimes, if you don't have enough material of your own, you can take a short-cut on political book-writing by selling out someone more important. 

Example: "Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor" by Matt Latimer, a speechwriter to President George W. Bush in the last two years of his Administration. Released in bookstores this week, the book is a supposed "tell all" recounting episodes from top-level meetings in the White House where President Bush ostensibly made disparaging or otherwise embarrassing remarks. 

Excerpts of the book are available at GQ's website here. 

Naturally Bush loyalists have dog piled criticism of the book and denounced it as mere mischief-making, the product of an out-of-work political hack who wasn't the star he thought he was. 

Now, I do not know if what Latimer wrote was true. While we both worked in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, I wasn't in any of the meetings Latimer recounts, and I didn't really know him. (I saw him at the 8 a.m. morning communications staff meetings a few times, but that's it.) 

So I can't speak to either the content of the book or the character of its writer. But I can say the following: disloyalty like this does not pay off; it will only hurt the betrayer in the long term. 

For as much as the Bush Administration was derided for putting such a high premium on loyalty, it was, in that way, no different than any other organization in the history of Washington, D.C. What President or member of Congress or agency or individual of any kind would want to hire someone with a history of disloyalty? Does anyone think that current White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel would suffer an ounce of disloyalty to President Obama? Emanuel, whose ruthless, profanity-ridden style of cut-throat Chicago political street-thuggery, seems to have less in common with a beneficent leader like Obama himself and more in common with, say, a Cylon Centurion from "Battlestar Galactica."  

It's one thing if to expose a politician where there's some kind of corruption issue and you're acting in a legitimate whistleblower capacity. Obviously loyalty to country should exceed loyalty to an individual. But this book isn't about whistleblowing as much as trying to embarrass a President who managed tragedies - recession, corporate accounting scandals, 9/11, two wars, Hurricane Katrina, financial meltdown - with more grace, charm, and optimism than most people manage their greatest victories.

Latimer may make a few bucks off of this, and he'll get a longer Wikipedia page than he would otherwise. But the message that he has broadcast to the world is that he cannot be trusted and he is disloyal to democratically elected public servants who give him the privilege of serving his country. Reputation and honor are perhaps more valuable than book sales.

Recently, I recounted an episode from a private meeting I had attended between Senators Hatch and Kennedy when I had worked for the former, to commemorate the death of the latter. Before I submitted the article to Utah Policy, I emailed Hatch's chief of staff and asked him if he would be OK with my recounting the private exchange. He said yes; I wouldn't have felt comfortable publishing it otherwise.

Loyalty counts. Disloyalty backfires. And, if I finally write the book my Aunt Jan wants me to, this can be Chapter One.