In modern, fearful and litigious corporate America it is known as “Plausible Deniability”.  A risk management term to describe an intentional layering of administrative action within an organization to protect the higher-ups from risk.  Plausible Deniability is a condition in which a subject can safely and believeably deny knowledge of any particular truth that may exist because the subject is deliberately made unaware of said truth so as to benefit or shield the subject from any responsibility associated through the knowledge of such truth.

If your opponent lacks incontrovertible proof (evidence) of their allegation, you can “plausibly deny” the allegation even though it may be true.  Because many lawyers are in politics, they brought forward a lower standard of ethics and integrity with them. This is why they rarely put anything controversial in writing. This is also why they most often have you talk to an underling or an agency bureaucrat so they can plausibly deny knowledge of the conversation or be able to say the underling or bureaucrat misstated their position.

Got it?

This is what you get with President Obama ad infinum.  Denial, obfuscation, and commentary filled with semantics that makes Bill Clinton’s claim of “it depends what your definition of “is” is” seem, well, contrasted it seems almost straight forward.

But we hate that right?   We hate nuanced and manipulated verbage specifically intended to provide varying degrees of separation.  We just want straight talkers.  We want honesty and responsibility for action.   We want principle and substance over clouded manipulations.  Right?

So why the heck would anyone vote for, or support, Mitt Romney?    Consider his attack ads and his approach to responsibility.   First the attack ad:

And now Romney’s response:

This from the same guy who denied running attack ads against Newt Gingrich even though CNN host Wolfe Blitzer confronted him with the fact he approved of the ad. This from the same guy who claims his offshore bank accounts are not controlled by him but rather by a blind trust. This from the same guy who never takes responsibility for anything, and who obfuscates everything.

Perhaps in the corporate world this type of leadership is what Risk Management experts teach, but in running a nation and looking out for the best interests of citizens this type of behavior is exactly what we should not support.   We need honesty, principled leadership, and integrity to lead the nation.  

We need people who will take responsibility and lead with character, not denial.