Top Guns and Top Secrets

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What do Bush and Cruise have in common, other than a history of playacting in flight gear? They work in towns where secrecy is an expression of power. Sure, secrets can be the means to important ends, but as publicists and White House aides know, keeping secrets is an end in itself. Even when it's brazen--especially when it's brazen--secrecy affirms and bolsters your alpha status: I know you want to know this thing. But you do not have the leverage to make me talk about this thing. Therefore I own you.

But that fortress of secrecy can crumble, fast, when you combine a hit to your popularity (Iraq, Matt Lauer) with a blow to your power (from the Judicial Branch, from Sumner Redstone). Suddenly the public that supported you over the nosy press wants answers. Suddenly you need access to the media more than the media needs access to you. And suddenly, why, your life is an open book!

It was a lucky week for Katie Couric to open shop. It was an edifying week for the rest of us. But don't get used to this Washington-Hollywood glasnost. Openness, after all, can be as strategic as secrecy. Measured. Calculated. Dedicated toward the day when you're strong enough again to roll down the shades, put up the walls and pack the baby pictures safely away.