Decorum

I have worked in business and government and have been part of organizations with leaders who were "candid" with each other so there was no misunderstanding.  I have been in meetings where there was heated discussion in debate, but there was no shouting or character issues raised as a part of them.  Outside the meeting, it isn't always the same way.  But, the one place where there was not a lot of that kind of "frank discussion" was in Congress and the White House.  People in both of those places are careful about what they say about each other.  It is part of the culture.  You don't criticize your own contemporaries in public.

"Never speak ill of a seated Congressman" is part of that tradition.  I saw that applied to a fellow contractor and she was gone the same day she criticized Hillary Clinton, forgetting that she was a seated Senator and not just the ex-President's wife.  There is nothing wrong with this kind of firing, however unfair it may seem to be.  The culture allows work to go on without politics getting in the way - most of the time, since nothing like a tradition can be perfect.  Cory Bookers testimony against Jeff Sessions is just one current example.  

This week, we see the pains of bringing in people who don't know the traditions and get no training before they start their work on the Hill.  Interns, new staff, and first-term Congressmen do.  Voters thought it would be a good idea to have businessmen in jobs that can influence Government performance and they may have been right about that.  But some of those government people should do better at checking on the standards of behavior before they start lashing out at their fellow workers.  Those traditions have been around for a long time, and they exist for a good reason.  Politics demands disagreement, but that disagreement should not be allowed to interfere with the good order of the institutions.    It is on both sides of the isle, and in camps on the grass of the White House lawn.  It is called decorum.  It really means that before you make public statements you know the rules of the place where you work.  When you have no rules, you lose a lot of the ability of the institution to get work done.  That applies equally to business organizations and government offices.  Even business leaders should know it.