Allow me to posit a case study: Two high-ranking government officials are the subject of multiple newspaper and magazine profiles in the span of a few weeks. The first official resists the attention. He isn’t so much as quoted in any of the pieces, whose authors glumly note his lack of enthusiasm for their projects. By contrast, the second official goes out of his way to cooperate with the profile-writers. He submits to numerous, on-the-record interviews and mounts a detailed defense of his actions. His aides even distribute one of the articles after the fact.

Now, which of these officials would you expect to be pilloried for hogging the spotlight and deflecting blame onto the president? Right--me, too.

I refer of course to Rahm Emanuel and Tim Geithner. Since...