George Washington complained that the press treated him unfairly, and I imagine every president since then has felt similarly at some point in his tenure in office. But as a public official in the United States, you agree to subject yourself and your actions to scrutiny. And for most of my early life and career, I had a sense that politicians, especially those at the national level, understood this compact. Even as they tried to hide things or shift attention away from scandal, they knew they could not afford to disengage from the press.
