A witty friend of mine once called her husband at work, and after only a few seconds asked, “Who’s in the office with you?” He was in fact with an important client. Later, he asked how she’d known he wasn’t alone. She replied, “Because you were speaking to me like someone who hasn’t shared my bed for thirty years.” 

The anecdote springs to mind whenever a public figure I know sacrifices spontaneity on the altar of image. As, for instance, in the tweets of Michael Coren, the well-known, formerly Catholic conservative polemicist, who—after a few flights and returns—finally left the Church for good after a Damascene, LGBT-rights inspired epiphany.