Keep Your Mouth Shut

Warning: Rant ahead.

Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent, is now running for Congress.

I have no problem with that. But he’s evidently written a book about and is now going around discussing the people he guarded while he was in the Secret Service, including both Presidents Bush and Obama.

I have a bit of advice for Mr Bongino, as well as other Secret Service agents: Keep your mouth shut.

The same goes for priests, nuns, counselors, therapists, doctors and politicians.

These are privileged positions which give those of us who hold them access to the deepest secrets of people’s lives. If you can’t keep your mouth shut about the deeply personal things that people share with you, then you shouldn’t be in a position of such trust.

What that means is don’t talk about the things your parishioners, patients, constituents, or the people you guard share with you. Don’t gripe about it, don’t gossip about it, don’t make fun of it, don’t talk about it or allude to it, or discuss it, even without using their names. Ever. To anyone. Period.

I don’t know anything about Mr Bongino’s politics, but if the story I read in which he discussed two presidents he protected are true, I know all I need to know about his character. If he can’t keep his mouth shut, he shouldn’t have been in the Secret Service, and he doesn’t belong in public office.