In conversation with a German Daron in 1807, Thomas Jefferson remarked that, “when a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself a public property.”

Recalling Jefferson as the intellectual father of American democracy, we may read this comment as an approving aphorism—a tenet of political philosophy. But Jefferson was, at the time, also an embattled president. He had suffered personal attacks as scurrilous as any in his day or ours.

So the remark may have been less an affirmation of democratic ideal than a recognition of political reality. Its tone implies resignation. Whether or not a public figure had a right to privacy and individuality, Jefferson seemed to regard at least some loss of both as inevitable.

In a free society with a free press, the demands of public life inevitably exceed the functional obligations of office. It is not enough for elected officials to make a straightforward accounting of the public business—the inarguably proper province of the public's right to know. The politics of a democracy also demand contact on a personal level. The public has a right to know what sort of people are running its affairs.