My point is that I believe the public interest is best served by a balance between "the public knows how this business was conducted" vs "any rival who wants my job can dig through everything I've done to find some dirt of me."

Politicians, functionaries, and executive staff are people too. And I think HN can be a bit schizophrenic decrying "people in government are so ineffectual and unwilling to take risks" while simultaneously designing a purity litmus test where only the most boring, unadventurous apparatchiks are able to keep their jobs.

Was that ever a standard for exemption from FOIA? Much less the intent of anyone writing any part of FOIA? Stupidity should hurt.

If stupidity were cause for dismissal, we'd have a hard time staffing most of the jobs in the world.