Steve Murphy in “Unfinished Business”

Steve Murphy

[narrating] Best way to make a bad story go away is to come up with a better story and sell it hard. This is one of the cornerstones of American foreign policy, and one we learned through years of trial and error in Latin America, Chile, Guatemala, Panama. Getting caught with your pants down sucks, but if at the same time you give the folks a big win, like, say, dismantling the second biggest drug cartel in the world, well, then nobody's paying attention to the bad story. They're too busy patting you on the back. Risky plan? Yes. But pressure will force you to take risks. It'll force you to do a lot of things.