[N]one of his staff, no member of his administration, and almost no…official seems to want to hold the president truly accountable for his actions.
[A]re there no honorable men around him? Can his staff and cabinet be lied to without consequence? Is there nothing that will impel them to depart? They need not become vociferous critics of the president. They need not denounce him. A quiet, principled leave-taking would suffice. But it would be refreshing if one of them refused to be complicit any longer in the ongoing lie that is the … White House. Apparently, not one of them is willing to do that.
Personal loyalty is an admirable trait, and so is political loyalty. Up to a point. Government officials work for the nation, not simply for the president. They swear an oath to the Constitution, not to the president. To remain loyal to a president who lies is to make oneself complicit in his lies. To remain loyal to a man who has brought shame to his office is to make oneself complicit in that shame. At some point, blind loyalty must yield to principled honor. When?
The quotes are from the Weekly Standard editorial “Where Are the Resignations?” of August 31, 1998, written by the chief editor Bill Kristol.
I have to credit the Rude Pundit for this research. As he says, politics is criminalized when criminals get into politics.
