Timeless advice sadly ignored

In Oliver Stone's 1995 biopic film about President Richard Nixon, there's a memorable passage attributed to H. R. Haldeman.  Haldeman is lamenting the fact that Nixon's key advisors including himself, failed to give Nixon pivotal advice about the Watergate scandal before it consumed his presidency.  The Haldeman character portrayed by actor James Woods says,

"Eight words back in '72.  'I covered up. I was wrong. I'm sorry'. The American public would have forgiven him." 

Flash forward to our present day controversy about Trump senior team members' use of the encrypted messaging app Signal -- an issue the Left has cheerily dubbed "Signalgate"-- and some historical parallels emerge.  

Let's dismiss one trope immediately, this embarrassing episode will not engulf the Trump administration, although NSA chief Mike Waltz may take a fall.  To his credit, Mr. Waltz recently took the Haldemanesque approach with a straightforward admission on Laura Ingraham's show, 

"I take full responsibility. I built the group," "It's embarrassing. We're going to get to the bottom of it."  Smart.  If only the whole administration had followed suit.

I don't know what sort of reputation The Atlantic Editor in Chief Jeffrey Goldberg enjoys in media circles, but the Trump team has little to gain by trashing him now.  Although The Atlantic juts to the Left, they didn't create this mess.  As we now know, Goldberg was mystifyingly added to the chat group by Mike Waltz, or Mr. Waltz's proxy.  Blaming the technology, (or Goldberg) for Goldberg's errant invitation to a sensitive high level government session, doesn't hold water.  This inspires a personal recollection...

Years ago, a colleague and I attended a competitors' financial conference in Chicago.  From a business development perspective, it was a target-rich affair with several prospective clients in tow.  After soliciting one of the organizer's clients, my colleague and I were thoroughly berated at breaktime by a hosting executive because he learned that I had the temerity to approach his client at "their" event.  The executive wanted us to leave immediately.  (We did not).  I protested by pointing out that his own marketing team had invited us.  We'd been mistakenly invited; but we hadn't crashed the party.  Moreover, being direct competitors; the enraged sponsor shouldn't have reasonably expected us to confine conversations with attendees to benign issues like the weather.

image by freepik

What stands out about the recent Signal circus, is that the administration's protestations can do more damage than the original mishap itself and fuel more unwanted media attention.  There didn't have to be enduring fallout from "the chat" other than episodic embarrassment.  No significant secrets were compromised, no duplicity was revealed and the military action at the core of the issue -- was by all accounts -- effective.  So, own up to the error and don't extend the drama the way Defense Secretary Hegseth chose to do so recently.  

Let's instead get on to the business of apprehending and deporting illegal migrants and stopping waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer funds.  Those are winning endeavors that enjoy broad support and require no public excuses.