Politics & Power Quote by James Reston

Power, Reston suggests, is uniquely porous: the higher you climb, the more you drip. "A government is the only vessel that leaks from the top" works because it flips a household certainty into an indictment. Leaks are supposed to be failures of craftsmanship at the bottom seam, not a feature of leadership. By turning the state into a container, Reston strips away ceremony and ideology and asks a blunt question: if governance is meant to hold the public trust, why does it so often hemorrhage information, credibility, and responsibility from its highest point?

The intent is not to romanticize whistleblowing or gossip but to expose a structural truth about modern politics: those with the most access also have the most incentive to disclose selectively. "Leaks from the top" aren't just accidental spills; they're tools. Insiders leak to wound rivals, float trial balloons, launder controversial decisions, or create a narrative of inevitability. The public sees "transparency", but the subtext is manipulation dressed as candor.

As a journalist who built a career on Washington's backstage machinery, Reston was writing from a world where the press and government are locked in a transactional dance: officials need attention, reporters need information, and both pretend the exchange is purely principled. The line carries a dry cynicism about authority. In a healthy system, accountability would flow upward and information downward. Reston’s joke is that in government, gravity is reversed: the people at the top are the ones who can’t keep it together - and sometimes don’t want to.