“I hope the President continues to exercise extraordinary constitutional means, based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past. He’s looking administratively for ways to advance the causes of the American people, because this Congress is completely dysfunctional. President Obama tends to idealize — and rightfully so  — Abraham Lincoln, who looked at states in rebellion and he made a judgment that the government of the United States, while the states are in rebellion, still had an obligation to function…On several occasions now, we’ve seen … the Congress is in rebellion, determined, as Abraham Lincoln said, to wreck or ruin at all costs. I believe … in the direct hiring of 15 million unemployed Americans at $40,000 a head, some more than $40,000, some less than $40,000 — that’s a $600 billion stimulus. It could be a five-year program. For another $104 billion, we bailout all of the states … for another $100 billion, we bailout all of the cities.”

—– Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), telling the Daily Caller how he thinks unemployment should be addressed. Jackson inexplicably left out the part where Superman gives President Obama a magic lamp, and the President uses his three wishes to turn all his political opponents into beef jerky, banish the national debt, and make money grow from beans that get delivered to every American daily by a suddenly solvent postal service, transported around the country in Santa’s sleigh.

Jackson’s quote is many things: frightening, funny, tragic, sad, infuriating, shocking. Here at Ethics Alarms, it could have won him the Incompetent Elected Official of the week, and it also qualifies him as an Ethics Dunce, just as it disqualifies him from serving in the House of Representatives, any city council, or a senior prom decorations committee.  Mostly, however, it demonstrates the pathetic quality of thought and responsibility in the U.S. Congress, and the juvenile level of analysis that flourishes there. Jesse Jackson Jr. is not the most unqualified member of Congress. Think about that.

First, however, ponder what Jackson’s words suggest. When national leadership has failed miserably, it isn’t the leadership, but the system that needs to be overhauled. (Accountability? What’s that?) Because a majority of the elected body that he belongs to has different ideas about policy than the President, the President should by-pass the body and the Constitution—justified, because Jackson supports the President. (Process? Democracy? Fairness?) The President should treat Congress like the seceding Confederate States, because they are similarly “in rebellion”—a direct call for dictatorship. [History? Logic? Proportion? Sanity?] And, although government’s irresponsible fiscal policies, cowardly responses to long-standing problems and incompetent regulation are deeply implicated in the current mess, the solution is for the same government to just solve everything by hiring everyone—to do what?—and pay off everyone’s debts—with what?—leaving it with one more massive responsibility to botch.

Jackson’s “thinking” is certainly on the same page with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, but high elected officials have to be held to higher standards of discourse and advocacy than bearded, shirtless, stoned guys beating drums in a park (as well as Michael Moore and Paul Krugman). Jackson breached the professional ethics of the House by embarrassing everyone in it, and his comments approach new lows in their complete abandonment of responsibility, reason, and respect for the Constitution, national institutions and the rule of law.