# 'Creatures of expedience' — retained record

> Retained news record from news:semafor.

Canonical: https://highsignal.app/data/records/01a1074354e0227b

[← sources](https://highsignal.app/data)


source: [news](https://highsignal.app/data/news) (news:semafor)  published 2026-08-31 16:47 ingested 2026-09-01 02:50

[original source ↗](https://www.semafor.com/article/08/31/2026/creatures-of-expedience)

## retained text



```
Profiles in Cowardice by Jacob Weisberg.
The scathing portrait of American elites’ accommodations to US President Donald Trump has a title styled after John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, but it’s a portrait of the opportunism of leaders focused on their own interests at the expense of civic life.
Weisberg includes familiar stories like that of former Paul Weiss chairman Brad Karp but is particularly scathing when he writes about Dartmouth President Sian Beilock, who championed a “DEI Cabinet” before meeting the White House halfway.
Media commentator Tina Brown raves: “It’s fascinating, and instructive, to see the multiple ways supposedly upstanding titans of the establishment give themselves permission to become creatures of expedience.” Buy Profiles in Cowardice from your local bookstore.
```



document fetched 2026-09-01 02:50 · canonical https://semafor.com/article/08/31/2026/creatures-of-expedience