The "It's always the cover-up" CW misses a logical point

[cthulu2016]

Inside-the-beltway chatterboxes always marvel at how giant scandals didn't need to become giant scandals, but the lies and cover-up ended up being the back-breaker.

"If only politicians would level with the people and be proactive in getting to the heart, blah, blah."

Here is what they overlook...

A cover-up is deadly when disclosed, but a cover-up that works is never disclosed.

I think there is an approach to scandal that usually works, but appears ridiculous (and potentially career-ending) when it doesn't work.

And, like many high-risk strategies, this leads to spectacular success and spectacular flame-outs. And the practioners who haven't hit a flame-out yet look fire-proof.

Watergate was not the first criminal, disgusting thing Nixon ever did. It was the one where the total-lie, total-nondisclosure, total-arrogance strategy happened to blow up.

I do not think we are in a position to know whether the "lie, dismiss, be-little, circle the partisan wagons," is optimal or not. We would need to see all the times it worked in secret to know its real track record.

Christie might have done 100 things like this that will never be publicized.

Anyway, it would be ironic if his downfall was the same as Nixon's... a bizarre obsession with running up the score in a re-election campaign he was certain to win in a landslide.

[longship]

1. Well, Nixon ran against McGovern because his dirty tricks flung all the good opponents away.

Charles Colson wrote the Canuck letter, a blatant forgery that helped ruin Edmund Muskie's presidential run.

Nixon ran against McGovern because he did not want to run against what he perceived to be stronger candidates. In hindsight, he was right. But it was how he got there that became the issue.

Like the Watergate break-in, the Fort Lee traffic jam was not the first rat fucking Chris Christie had orchestrated.

I pray that this escalates to a criminal investigation and somebody sings like a canary.