When in doubt, wear a muzzle!

There was a time when people knew when to speak and when to stay put. In the area of state service it seems the "all about me" mentality is making inroads into the top echelons of taxpayer-funded institutions. This is dangerous. Trust breakdown between the public and the government can be healed through an election cleansing. When intra-government trust goes down the drain, the consequences linger and simmer until we're left with a dysfunctional institutional jumble.

We've seen examples of this egocentrism in General McChrystal and, I'm sad to say, CSIS Director Richard Fadden.

In both cases we saw a powerful personality (and no doubt an ambitious one) use the media as tools to gain attention and, as some Russians would aptly say, "perform without a muzzle".

Between a private citizen expressing an opinion and a public figure criticising the government lies an ocean we call alternatively "public duty" and "institutional credibility". McChrystal's outburst against the White House was as much an opinion as an open insubordination, and he had to be removed. Mr Fadden's worrisome insinuations were completely out of place on CBC's National.

Would you, as an employer, tolerate your subordinates calling you a moron to your clients' faces, or suggesting at the water cooler without evidence that you were having an affair?

When in any kind of service, whether public or private, one needs to know one's limits. You can either stay silent, talk privately to the management, blow the whistle full-scale or resign. That's the choice.

If McChrystal has concerns, he should either voice them to his chiefs of staff and Mr Obama or resign. Mr Fadden's suggestions of foreign infiltration should have been passed to the RCMP rather than paraded (and unsubstantiated) on national television.

Why is it so bloody difficult to realize one's not the omnipotent and untouchable centre of the universe? How hard can it be to stop and think "am I doing the right thing?".