Is that what it takes to go all the way in politics? Ambition first, everything else back in the pack? And if… — Charles Sheffield

Right decision or wrong decision, it was a leader’s job to make it.

The same thing happens to every President. People tell a chief executive what they think he wants to hear. Rosy economic reports, high popularity figures, promising international changes, you name it. There’s a competition to be the first with good news. Anyone who tells bad news tends to get weeded out—even if all the real news is bad.

It is one of the unfortunate aspects of the legal profession that excess carries no penalty. There is never, for a lawyer, such a thing as too much.