Advise your boss to "pretend he's guilty"

The old saying about political scandals is: "The cover-up is often worse than the crime." Most recent evidence (as of June 2011) : Republican Senator Coburn and Democratic Congressman Weiner. So here's my recommendation to all those working for any politician: If you hear about a scandal involving your boss, no matter how 'unbelievable', take him aside and say the following: "Don't deny the rumor! Just pretend you're guilty. Then make a public admission and apology. The media is always fixated on scandals (especially sex scandals) because they're much easier to understand compared to policy issues. Let's simply admit it because only that will enable us to move on to the important issues." This tactic may be just enough of a dissembling kabuki dance to get some of the actually guilty people to make the right choice instead of letting instinctual defensiveness compel a futile strategy of denial. Hopefully, the actually innocent will maintain their innocence. Whereas the guilty will thus have enough of a face-saving "out" to tell the truth (while only pretending that they're lying). Of course this won't work with true sociopaths. But it's worth a shot. .