The saying goes "April showers bring May flowers." For Congressman Anthony Weiner, April brought a torrential May storm.
On May 27, 2011, Weiner, used his public Twitter account to send a sexually explicit text to a 21 year old Washington State woman. The link was quickly removed, but screen shots of Weiner’s original message and the photo were captured on Twitter, and sent to a blogger who published them on his website the next day.
In our Crisis Communication Lesson, Eric Chandler wrote “Tell it all and “Tell it fast”. Weiner took the ignore, deny, lie, point the finger approach, displaying for us all what not to do. Where were his advisers? Weiner waited four days to come forth in a series of interviews. He denied sending the photo, suggested someone hacked into his account, and said the photo was definitely not him. Shovel, shovel... keep digging that hole, dude.
This mess ended in public embarrassment and his resignation. It could’ve ended less painfully if Weiner immediately came out with it, accepted the blame and told the truth, instead of waiting and finally coming out like a cornered rat.
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ReplyDeleteWeiner is not the only elected leader who learned the hard way that he should have been candid to start with. Many other politicians tried to run away from the truth to no avail. The glaring cases include:
ReplyDelete1. Bill Clinton, his womanizing, and his lying about it in a sworn deposition that lead to an impeachment charge.
2. Gary Hart. He dared the press to follow him when he knew damn well that he was having an affair with Donna Rice.
3. And of course, Richard Nixon, who insisted he did nothing improper, even though tape recordings tied him to Watergate.
I think the real problem is hubris. Too many politicians let the job go to their heads. Their arrogance leads to a false & unrealistic sense of invincibility.
As such, these wrongdoing politicians think they can merely summon plausible denability at will, when the hard facts won't permit that at all.
And as time goes on, there will be still more political figures who will stubbornly refuse to recognize this. And they'll pay the price of enduring a great deal more humiliation and shame, than if they came clean to start with. -Tom