Excerpt:
The embarrassing revelations from Anthony Fauci's diary make me wonder if anyone ever gave him the warning I received when I served in George W. Bush's administration: Be careful what you write down. As Dr. Fauci is learning, anything written down while working for government can become a government record.
Diaries have been part of the landscape since the earliest days of our republic. George Washington kept one, filling it during his early morning "quiet time," when he also wrote letters and handled paperwork. From John Quincy Adams's diary we know that he regularly woke early and swam naked in the Potomac, occasionally with his sons or his valet.
In the modern era, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, both Bushes and Barack Obama all kept diaries, though various in form and regularity. Some would add Donald Trump, although we know his diary by other names: his Twitter feed and Truth Social posts. In 2017, journalist Michael Kruse characterized Mr. Trump's Twitter feed as "the latest adaptation of a longstanding portion of the records of the activities of the executive branch."
Presidential diaries often reveal a frustration with the press. Truman wrote: "To hell with them. When history is written they will be the sons of bitches—not I." Carter called the press corps "completely irresponsible and unnecessarily abusive." Reagan recorded during the Iran-Contra scandal that "the media looks like it's trying to create another Watergate." Such grumbles are nothing like Dr. Fauci's basking in the glowing coverage he received...