Neera Tanden: First Cabinet-Level Victim of the Twitter Era?



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That is, until she apologizes after Mr Biden appointed her budget manager.

“I think the last few years have been very polarizing, and I apologize for my language that has contributed to this,” Ms. Tanden told members of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs this month. “I know it’s up to me to show this committee and the Republican and Democratic members that I can work with anyone.” She noted that she had deleted several of her old tweets.

No problem, as the Republicans were more than happy to refresh her and everyone else’s memory.

“You wrote that Susan Collins is, quote, ‘the worst’, that Tom Cotton is a fraud,” Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman said, scolding Ms. Tanden. “How do you plan to mend the fences and build relationships with the members of Congress you attacked by your public statements?”

Mr. Portman went on to read a few more examples, including Ms. Tanden’s claim that “vampires have more hearts than Ted Cruz.” (Mr. Cruz, who was soon on his way to Cancun, was one of the few people who seemed to be having less fun than Ms. Tanden.)

As technology evolves, so do Washington’s rules of the road. In the past, potential candidates could be derailed by various “indiscretions”, “past statements” or certain things they might have said “in the heat of the moment”. This is all basically Twitter in a nutshell.

“People who want big jobs in Washington are always told to ‘avoid a paper trail,’ said Tevi Troy, presidential historian and White House official under President George W. Bush. This usually only involved potentially inflammatory books, articles or speeches. Then Twitter came along and offered a new kind of treacherous paper trail. Now anyone can destroy themselves in 280 characters or less in just a few seconds.

Progress!

“It’s almost worse than a paper trail,” Mr. Troy said of Twitter. “It’s more like a journal of what you are thinking at one point.”

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