The Good, The Bad, The Spin

I’m no Buddha*. And likely, neither are you.

The amount of perfection expected for people is unrealistic and often contradictory. The world’s noted scandals are often the results of character flaws of familial, biological and sociocultural origins, of which most of us possess.

Yet the bar is raised particularly high for public figures. It’s at the point of being unrealistic, so much so that I get a sense of cynical, voyeuristic enjoyment from the Peter Dohertys and Dennis Rodmans of the world. People like them, who relish in their careless, destructive behaviors, are refreshingly honest even while being distasteful to some.

Not giving a shit, when compared with the uppity expectations placed on many public figures, or just about anyone who screws up and is publicly exposed for it, is a healthy perspective. Suspending judgment of others is even healthier because the levels of expectation we place upon one another is, on some level, dependant upon our own mistakes and misjudgments. (more…)

It is not a lost irony that news outfits have to engage in public relations. And really, who doesn’t? If you relate to others, you do public relations. Today’s spectacle comes from the The Idahoe Statesmen. Regular readers of this blog know that, unlike what is read in reader comments in mainstream news sites, I tend to accept what pilloried politicians, government officials and the like say as having some element of truth (what benefit does lying have when the spotlight is on you?).

In other words, I view the inherent journalistic dogma, that officials–particularly those who are public figures or work in government– are de facto liars as being an unfair and ignorant journalistic bias. (more…)

In the late 1990s, President Bill Clinton was accused of selling burial plots at Arlington National Cemetery. The scandal made front page news all over the country. The problem: none of it was true. Lanny Davis, Clinton’s former special counsel, explains why this happened in part two of this exclusive interview for The Good, The Bad, The Spin.

* * *

LANNY DAVIS is former special counsel to President Bill Clinton. While in the White House from 1996 through 1998, Davis was assigned the difficult tasks of handling negative allegations against the President. He had to seemingly work against the formal machinations of the White House in order to give the President credibility in the face of, at times, bizarre allegations of impropriety. His experience is chronicled in his 2003 book, Truth To Tell: Tell It Early, Tell It All, Tell It Yourself: Notes from My White House Education.

Truth To Tell presents an inside view of media relations at the highest political level and soundly presents the story behind the stories. Davis’ latest book, Scandal: How “Gotcha” Politics Is Destroying America, sets America’s scandal culture in a much broader context by presenting the history of American political scandals through today’s 24-7 news cycle and the resulting extreme partisanship we see today. In the end, Davis presents a voice for commonality among political views. He now works as a litigator focusing on crisis management in Washington, D.C. (more…)