Learning the No Comment Rule

We can all applaud the commitments of the Obama Administration for greater transparancy and improved openness in communication with the public. However, this week, it was apparant that these commitments and practices have limits and that this administration needs to learn the "no comment rules." Of course, rule #1 is when lawyers tell you, for real, that you cannot make any comment because of possible legal jeopardy or interference with a legal process. But there are also other times when "no comment" or it's equivalent is the best response for the administratin and for the country.

One rule would be that "no comment" or its equivalent is the best response when any other response runs the risk of gratutiously damaging the national interest, creating a problem that did not exist before, exacerbating a problem that already does exist or that serves to take the nation's eyes off the agenda that the administration wishes to emphasize.

There are ample examples of violations of this rule from the Obama administration just in this last week, beginning with the President's initial remarks in regard to the arrest of Harvard Professor Gates. Then we have Vice President Joe Biden making remarks in Georgia that did not pleast Russia and then remarks in an interview with the Wall Street Journal upon his return from Georgia which strained botht the relation with Georgia and Russia. To add to the mix, Hilary Clinton characterized the attempt of Honduran President Zelaya to return to his country after being deposed by the army as "reckless."

None of the remarks mentioned above were necessary, helpful or enlighening. All of them served to exacerbate exiting problems, create new ones and take the nation's eyes off the agenda that the administration wishes to emphasize.

The "equivalent" of a "no comment" was demonstrated to perfection, on the other hand, by the administration's nomination to the Supreme Court, Judge Sonya Sotomayor. There are numerous variations of themes which allow a person to give essentially a "no commnet" without saying those words. In Sotomayor's case it varied from saying the question raised a "hypothetical", to the fact that she might have to rule on a similar case involved in the question, or that she didn't have enough information about the state law that would apply...and on and on and on.

The "equivalents" of "no comment" need to be practiced and held always just a tip of the tongue away so that they can be quickly spit out even though one's mind is formulating what one really would want to say if they were not a member of the President's cabinet or staff.

It is still early in the Obama Adminstration and I am confident that the President himself, the Secretary of State and the Vice President will learn that in a week where the President was trying to keep himself and the nationa and the Congress focused on the dire need of the nation for a national health care plan it is not good to blow up incidents beyond proportion, needlesssly antagonize friends, increase the number of phone calls the President needs to make to repair damages or, in pursuit of building up democracy, to change the paradigm of "reckless" to apply to a harmless political stunt instead of a military coup.

Personally, I would be pleased to become the White House Consultant on when to invoke the "no comment" rule including training for all staff on the various acceptable forms of the "no comment equivalent." If the position is not contemplated, perhaps stimulus money could be found to crate just one more job.