I have spent twenty minutes deciding whether “assisted” could honestly become “managed.” There were other people involved. Someone else made the spreadsheet. I would hate to get to an interview and find myself explaining a verb.
Meanwhile, Katie Zacharia started work as White House press secretary on Monday. By Friday, Reuters reported that a White House official said she had been let go. I have waited longer for a rejection email.
Zacharia has a law degree from Pepperdine. She also acknowledged that she did not pass the bar exam. Trump had introduced her as an attorney; she defended describing herself as a lawyer, saying she had consulted people who assured her that the distinction was acceptable. She denied presenting herself as a practicing attorney. The explanation required considerably more space than the original credential.
Failing an exam is an ordinary human disappointment. It tells us very little about someone’s worth, and a press secretary does not need a law license. But the person explaining the government to the public should be able to explain her own qualifications without creating a second assignment for the press.
When those qualifications came under scrutiny, the White House called her “uniquely qualified” and attacked a watchdog seeking an investigation. That response deserves at least as much attention as the résumé. Someone asked a checkable question. The administration supplied an insult and another compliment.
To me, the episode suggests an administration remarkably comfortable discovering its personnel problems in public. The appointment arrives with absolute confidence. The questions arrive afterward. Then the person leaves, and we are apparently supposed to admire how quickly the problem has been resolved.
It is funny until I remember what these jobs are for. During a crisis, people need to know whether they can believe the person at that podium. Every avoidable deception, every defensive ambiguity, spends a little more of that trust. This is how administrative incompetence becomes dangerous: eventually, even an accurate warning has to fight through the disbelief.
And I think of everyone sitting at a kitchen table, trying to make an honest account of their working life sound sufficient. All that anxiety about being good enough. All those carefully chosen verbs.
I am beginning to suspect the weakness in my résumé is that I expect someone to check it.
