Opinion & Satire

A résumé is not a mood board. If a public official lists a professional credential, asking what it is should not require a diplomatic expedition.

Reuters' report, published overnight into October 15 about questions raised Wednesday, says it could not locate records showing White House press secretary Katie Zacharia belonged to a US state bar or the District of Columbia bar. Zacharia says she practiced international transaction law with the appropriate credentials.

The Associated Press separately reports that California's bar regulator says it has no record of her being licensed there. Pepperdine confirms her law-school graduation. A degree, a job description and professional authorization answer different questions.

Those facts justify asking for clarification. They do not establish every allegation circulating online, nor do they prove that no relevant credential could exist anywhere. We are not going to replace a missing explanation with a homemade conviction.

The Follow-Up Is The Job

The White House could respond with a specific account of what Zacharia did, where she was authorized to do it and what her public descriptions mean.

That would be considerably more useful than treating the question as a contest between patriotic supporters and malicious reporters. An employment history should not need a cheering section. It should need dates and details.

A press secretary does not have to be a lawyer to be effective. The position calls for preparation, command of policy and the ability to give accurate answers under pressure. Legal training might help. So might a functioning willingness to say that a detail needs checking.

The issue is not whether every spokesperson must arrive dragging a law library. It is whether the government expects the public to accept its descriptions without verification.

That is an especially poor precedent for an office responsible for explaining everything else.

If a simple background question produces ambiguity, people reasonably wonder how the same office will handle a complicated account of spending, enforcement or military policy. That is not proof that every future answer will be wrong. It is a reason to establish a better standard now.

Accuracy Is Not Elitism

There is a familiar escape hatch in credential controversies: accuse critics of worshipping degrees and professional status.

That argument misses the point so comprehensively it should qualify for frequent-flyer miles.

People without prestigious qualifications can be excellent public servants. People with impressive credentials can be disastrous ones. Neither observation makes it acceptable to leave a claimed qualification unclear.

The demand should be modest and universal: describe your background accurately. If a title could mislead, explain it. If an earlier description was imprecise, correct it. If the record supports the claim, produce the relevant record.

Democrats should not get an exemption from that test. Nor should journalists elevate an awkward answer into a definitive account of someone's entire career before the evidence supports it. Scrutiny is most useful when it is precise enough to survive a change of party labels.

Personal insults would only weaken this argument. Appearance, clothing and gender have nothing to do with whether a professional claim can be substantiated. The public interest is in accuracy, not a new supply of cheap jokes about a woman at a podium.

The administration has an opportunity to settle a narrow issue clearly and move on to the substantial questions the country needs answered.

That would be better for Zacharia, better for reporters and better for the public.

An office devoted to communicating with Americans should not turn “Please clarify” into the hardest question on the syllabus.