Over this past weekend I had a couple of conversations with some people about the whole prom night controversy and one of the things that got said, which I’ve heard many times before in other contexts, was that, “don’t you think the people in authority know what they’re doing?”
As if that is any answer when they demonstrate that, clearly, whatever they’re doing it has nothing to do with common sense, ethics, or any kind of honesty.
I’ve been hearing that rejoinder for decades, ever since Vietnam, and I keep coming back to that scene in All The President’s Men when Deep Throat lectures Robert Redford about the nature of the administration and he tells him, really, these are not very smart guys. …