I find myself falling more in line with Will Wilson’s analysis of the Matt Latimer “loyalty” question than I do with Conor Frieserdorf. One thing that Latimer’s defenders keep arguing is that somehow the former speech writer’s loyalty to “the people” is more important than his loyalty to his former boss, and that the information in his book is somehow valuable for the public good. Maybe we could call this the public goods.
My question is at what point does loyalty to your “team” or to your boss, or to anyone else for that matter, become secondary to loyalty to something else, or to an “abstraction”- to “the people” or “the truth”?
I think it depends, actually. If Latimer has evidence of a crime or some other vital, national-security related information then I think it’s incumbent upon him to divulge that information to the proper authorities. If, however, all Latimer has is a bunch of anecdotes that amount to little more than character assassination and book sales, then he’s probably being motivated more by greed than by a desire to tell the truth.
Since there is little of value in Latimer’s book (that I’ve heard of anyways) beyond stories which paint the former president as an egomaniac, I’d have to qualify Latimer as opportunistic, in it for his own financial gain, and deserving of each and every one of Bill Bennett’s rather colorful descriptors.
Will has a number of good questions for Conor in his post, which you should go read. But this last line says it best:
I was on board when, back at Culture 11, [Conor] criticized loyalty to the conservative movement. Now that he’s criticizing loyalty to people, I’m about ready to jump off this boat.
And so the question becomes, is Latimer a whistle-blower or a scumbag? Or both?
Update.
Another thought – if someone in the former administration came out with a book on policy mistakes and laid those mistakes out and said, “Here’s where we went wrong, and here’s what we could have done differently” – I think that would be a perfectly fair, introspective, valuable and justifiable thing to do. Latimer’s book seems to be more a personality piece and a hit piece on his former boss, especially since Latimer – Like McClellan before him – was not involved in policy so much as PR.
A military officer swears such an oath, and is duty bound to refuse orders from the CinC that go against that oath.
Loyalty to the president should ALWAYS be secondary to loyalty to the Constitution.
It is not as clear, in Latimer’s case, that he is defending the Constitution – but “the people” is a useful stand-in for the Constitution. If his book reveals more of the rot – more of the “frat boy” – then that is a good thing for “the people”.
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Let’s see:
1. “Yellowcake from Nigeria”
2. “Won’t let inspectors look around”
3. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”
…
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Are we saying that insider books about previous administrations are verboten?
And, yes, I find “I redefined the Republican Party” provides an interesting look into the mind of
an unhinged idiotthe president. A very cursory unpacking of that statement shows that he thinks that Reagan is no longer important, since he’s redefined the party. I think that’s a big belief for a president to have, and shows some of his delusions of grandeur.Report
Not verboten. But writing a book that doesn’t touch on policy but is basically just a character attack against a highly unpopular former administration is more a sleazy way of getting money and publicity than a valuable contribution to the public good.
My view: if there’s something really wrong going on within the administration (in the sense of illegalities or blatant untruthfulness on matters of importance like the rationale for going to war), people with knowledge of them have a public duty to resign and speak out. If they simply disagree with policy, writing about that once they’ve left their position can also be useful. But books like McClellan’s (and, I gather from reviews, Latimer’s) aren’t like that – they’re released long after those people could have done anything about it or contributed anything useful and done for the purpose of making money off of an administration’s popularity after having participated in and shilled for its wrongdoing in the first place. Nothing ethical or admirable about it.
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It’s amazing that you are decrying the lack of [important] content in a post about lack of loyalty.
Paging Dr. Mountain, Dr. Molehile…
Sheldon makes an important point about the balance of fury and truth. A much more important issue than this obsession with chaste and pure loyalty.
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Latimer may well be a sleaze who’s cashing in. (Seems to be a lot of those in the former administration, no?) He might be a guy who’s realized what he was part of is coming clean. Maybe some of both; I’m certainly not discounting the former.
OTOH, I find the notion that he owes Bush personal loyalty to not criticize the former President, to be a bit beyond the pale. I would think that Latimer–or any administration official–would know what their legal and ethical responsibilities are, but “thou shalt never speak ill of the boss” isn’t, or ought not be, one of them.
Conor’s point–that Bill Bennett wouldn’t excoriate an ex-Clintonite writing a book blasting Bill (or a future tell-all book against Obama) stands.
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Pingback: Thirty-Two Short Films About Two Ex-Presidents « Around The Sphere
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1. I would rank spreading lies as a lower form of discourse. As far as I know no one accuses Latimer of telling lies, and let me quickly add, I have no idea if the stories are true or false. That is why I said “if.”
2. You have every right to label Latimer a “gossip” and associate yourself with those calling him a “worm” but you speculating on his motives is close kin to gossip in my book.
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I’m not sure that writing an opinion of a guy who wrote a big tell-all book is quite the same thing as gossip, though. I’m not close to Latimer, and revealing some of his dirty laundry. I’m questioning his motives, and the validity of this sort of book in general. Not sure how that’s anywhere close to gossip.
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1. You write, “Gossip is very similar to lies. It spreads someone’s opinions on somebody else as though it were the truth, when in fact it is only masquerading as the truth. It may not be a lie, but it’s a foggy sort of truth.”
2. In speculating on Latimer’s motives aren’t you “spreading” your “opinions” “as though it were the truth.” Hence, by your definition, gossip and at best “foggy…truth.”
3. This will just be another case where we differ, I *do* see this speculation regarding his motives as close kin to gossip.
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As was Bush, E.D, as was Bush.
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Is he biased? Out to make a quick buck? Of course he is.
Is he telling the truth? If so, then he’s doing a service. At the very least, he isn’t harming anything.
In any case, you can rest easy knowing that, after a small flurry of sales, the book will be on the remainder tables by Thanksgiving.
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But is he a “sleaze” *just* because “…he gave more stories about what happened?” And I’m guessing you mean truthful stories for if his stories are fiction masquerading as fact he would be a sleaze. So my answer would be “no.” But I guess you have developed a new category of sleaziness – good sleaze.
E.D., and others, defame him (“The guy is a worm.”) on account of his disloyalty to Bush, not his veracity.
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It’s a handmaid of the virtues, certainly… but loyalty to someone who is doing something bad is not a virtue.
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I don’t see how Bennette and E.D. can condemn Latimer’s book on their notion that loyalty trumps everything else.
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And, of course, he’s right. No one on K Street will, in fact, hire him. If he wants to make any money at all, it’ll have to be something like this.
This makes him extremely unsympathetic.
That said, if the book is accurate, the book is accurate and the book itself needs to be judged on those merits. If it’s mostly crap that doesn’t tell us anything of use (excepting Bush’s thoughts that he redefined the party (?!?)), well… he’s a sleaze who didn’t even tell us anything of use when he rolled over on his former bosses.
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Jaybird, obviously you have information I lack.
How do you know Latimer failed to secure employment on K Street? How do you know Latimer even sought employment on K Street?
By your own reckoning Latimer will secure a piddling sum for his efforts. So that does not seem a wise path to follow if one is concerned about future employment.
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I am guessing, however, that if he were able to get employment on K Street, he’d not have written a book. It seems to me that this book is, in fact, a retaliatory act. “You won’t take care of me, well… I’ll talk about what happened!”
Perhaps I am completely and totally misreading the situation. Wouldn’t be the first time.
“So that does not seem a wise path to follow if one is concerned about future employment.”
From where I sit, I’d say that Wisdom was this guy’s dump stat.
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This book trick is a trick that works once. He will never again be trusted with anything bookworthy.
Loyalty is not a virtue but it is a handmaid to them.
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Since E.D. has gone out of his way to endorse every word of the colorful condemnations of Latimare by Bennett (and see also James Carville re: Bill Richardson), let’s have just a bit more to be sure the flavor of this species of wretch remains fresh on our palette:
Ahhh… refreshing! ;)
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Regarding your personal experience (and mine), first, our former bosses’ good word about our work is still far more valuable to us than any stories we might tell about negative experiences with them. Second, neither of us has had George W. Bush for a boss. I’m not sure either of us can say what we’d do if both those facts were reversed. This guy may feel that rather than enhancing his career prospects, his White House service instead is a stain he is going to have a hard time explaining to people he’d like to work for.
Can you recall any author who worked in the Clinton White House who a) wrote a memoir that put him in a particularly worse light than he put himself in already AND b) was excoriated by loyalists for it in terms similar to Bennett’s? Even if the excoriation didn’t occur at the time, is there an example of such a Clinton-affiliated author to whom you would be willing to apply Bennett-like condemnation to yourself?
If your problem is simply that these folks are cashing in on their government service by penning non-substantive gossipy hit-jobs on their former employers because that’s a plainly scuzzy thing to do in itself, then I have no problem with what you are saying. But so far, you are sticking to the notion that the scuzziness stems from the disloyalty, and the disloyalty entirely justifies moral smoting at the righteous hand of Bill Bennett. I can’t be there with you on that, even leaving the gross hypocrisy of William Bennett condemning anyone for anything out of it.
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I was with you until that last sentence.
Why is Bennett’s hypocrisy so gross that he isn’t allowed to condemn others for anything, again?
Because he doesn’t think that gambling is morally wrong even though he totally should?
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Anyway, I’m willing to live with some douchiness if that’s the price of making legal information available. Maybe it will be useful; maybe it will not be. I know for sure I’d rather have it out there, though, and it’s curious to me that any intellectually honest conservative would disagree.
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My view: if there’s something really wrong going on within the administration (in the sense of illegalities or blatant untruthfulness on matters of importance like the rationale for going to war), people with knowledge of them have a public duty to resign and speak out.
And here’s the rub. The Bush II administration was absolutely obsessed with secrecy. Is there really any doubt about this? We didn’t even know, half the time, where the Vice President was! Think back on their claims to secrecy, document non-disclosure, and the flip-side of that, warrantless wiretapping. First-person salacious tell-alls are all we have to reveal what actually went on in our Executive Branch.
And this guy seems to confirm our worst fears: the character of the Commander in Chief was deeply flawed, and unsuited to the office he held.
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He has a book to sell
1.) Derived from the right-wing tendency to dismiss any legitimate criticism from a former party member, where they claim cynically that the individual is simply trying to drum up book sales. See “Clarke, Richard A.”
2.) Attack used to defame any whistle blower, insider account or opponent of one’s own worldview, if said opponent has authored a book. The fact that in general the method for spreading an idea or allegation in modern society is by first authoring a book or magazine article, and then being interviewed in the press. Useful for simply disregarding an argument, not matter how factual or valid, simply by implying a profit motive. Considered a valid attack even if the author already has substantial personal wealth.
A form of the ad hominem logical fallacy in that it attacks the writer’s motives without addressing his or her argument.
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“Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.” – In 2000, WSJ pundit and sometimes paid Republican operative Peggy Noonan introduced a potentially explosive, unverifiable rumor that Bill Clinton was being blackmailed by Fidel Castro into the mainstream media, using the phrase “Is it irresponsible to speculate?… It would be irresponsible not to.” The blatant dishonesty of this ratfucking attempt immediately turned it into an Internet meme signifying a personal attack, usually wildly untrue, launched under a cloak of sanctimony: “Does Candidate Trollypants bite the heads off live, underaged, rabid bats? It would be irresponsible not to speculate!” See also, Keep on walking and Nooners.
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A person like Scott McClellan (who I’m using as an example because I more about his book than Latimer’s) – who spent his career lying for the Bush Administration, with no hint of doubt about what he was doing, and then after Bush’s approval ratings had absolutely tanked, wrote a book trying to pass himself off as a good guy – that’s just opportunism. And he didn’t even say anything of importance that hadn’t been said before.
It’s nothing to do with “loyalty”. It’s the difference between writing a political memoir as a service to the public or as a service to yourself. It’s just annoying when people doing the latter are embraced as courageous truth-telling heroes just because they say bad things about Bush, despite being complicit in the crimes of his administration and doing nothing whatsoever about them.
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And you know this how?
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“This is not to suggest that Latimer’s characterizations of chaos, off-the-cuff policymaking and cavalier message-crafting in the Bush administration is not accurate in many or even most particulars. But someone who trashes in humiliating detail the majority of colleagues he portrays in an account of 22 months of ultra high stakes work is not what I would call a a reliable narrator — however emotionally gratifying his judgments may be to outraged progressives, disillusioned conservatives, aggrieved insiders, and other constituencies who recognize the Bush presidency as a disaster.”
Oh, that snake, I mean worm, Latimer is “…accurate in many or even most particulars…but still not a reliable narrator….”
The unreliable truth teller!
We WILL shoot the the piano player!
Make It Stop!
http://xpostfactoid.blogspot.com/2009/09/cs-lewis-on-matt-latimer.html
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“(Latimer wrote speeches for Rummy at the Pentagon and is now helping the former defense chief with his memoir.)”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/opinion/27dowd.html?_r=1
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