“EEEK! The President is EVOLVING!!!”
Vice-President Joe Biden sent Washington, D.C.’s pundits into a tizzy when he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday that he was“absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage. It is amazing, when Biden has lapped all previous Vice Presidents in goofs, mistakes, outrageous statements and embarrassments that this statement—honest, reasonable and forthright—should be regarded as a serious blunder. What did he do wrong this time? As Dana Milbank of the Washington Post put it, Biden “committing the classic Washington gaffe of accidentally speaking the truth.”
And why is it a gaffe for this Vice President to tell the truth by stating his support for a position strongly favored by the majority of Democrats, and increasingly the public as a whole? Why would Biden be off message by embracing a core cause of the gay, lesbian and transgendered community, which is overwhelmingly in the Obama camp? The answer is that he has embarrassed the President by calling attention to the fact that President Obama has conspicuously avoided making such a clear and unequivocal statement on the issue, because he wants to avoid being open, honest, direct and truthful about his views on gay marriage until after the election.
I can find no respectable source that seriously believes that Obama is not in favor of gays having the same rights as heterosexuals, including the right to marry. Yet the Obama-supporting journalists at the Post and elsewhere merely snicker at the President’s lame and obvious efforts to fudge the issue. It’s only “politics as usual,” you see. “Several people close to the White House said the episode has exposed internal tensions within Obama’s team between those who want the president to say he favors same-sex marriage before the November election and others who worry about a political backlash if he does — not just among conservatives and working-class voters but among African Americans who are Obama’s most loyal support bloc but tend to oppose such unions,” the Post’s front page story this morning states. Translation: election strategists are debating whether the President of the United States should keep voters who object to gay marriage on moral grounds in line by deceiving them into believing that he won’t actively support it once he is elected, as he fully intends to do.
Lying to the public may be common in political campaigns, but it should never be ignored, accepted or justified. Obama’s weasel word of choice in this deception is “evolving,” as in “the President’s position on same-sex marriage is evolving.” This insulting non-communication reminds me of Philip Roth’s anti-Nixon fantasy, “Our Gang,” in which the White House communications office refuses to admit that Nixon is dead, and will only say that he’s “resting comfortably.” In fact, poor press secretary Jay Carney’s responses when quizzed by the press corps regarding how Biden’s comments square with the Presidents’ were either amusingly or frighteningly Roth-like. Milbank:
“I have no update on the president’s personal views,” Carney told the first questioner… “He, as you know, said that his views on this were evolving.”
[Jake]Tapper asked whether Obama was “still evolving” or whether he’s “just waiting for the proper time to drop it, likely after November.”
“It is as it was,” Carney said.
CBS’s Nora O’Donnell tried another approach. “Why does the president oppose same-sex marriage?”
“I really don’t have any update for you,” Carney answered.
“The vice president appears to have evolved on the issue, but the president is still evolving?” O’Donnell inquired.
“I will leave it to individuals to describe their own personal views.”
“..Reporters fired dozens of barbed questions and taunts. ‘Contorted position! . . . Why did you guys send out statements to clarify? . . . What does the word ‘evolving’ mean? . . . Is he not evolved?. . . I want you to dissect the evolution.”…NPR’s Mara Liasson asked whether Obama was “too clever by half,” essentially telling voters: “I’m getting ready to change my mind.”
“His views,” Carney maintained, “are crystal clear.”
Suuuuure they are, Jay. More from the press conference:
Q: Is Obama “comfortable” with men marrying men and women marrying women, as Biden is?
Carney: The president is comfortable with same-sex couples, as the vice president said, being entitled to the same rights and the civil rights and civil liberties as other Americans.
Q: So, is marriage a civil liberty?
Carney: You’d have to ask civil libertarians or lawyers.
Q: Is Obama getting ready to change his views on gay marriage?
Carney: Not necessarily.
Q: Does Obama view marriage as a federal or a state issue?
Carney: Well, he believes … marriage is a state issue, and the states have the right to take action on it. What he opposes is efforts to repeal rights that have been granted to LGBT citizens. He thinks that’s discriminatory and wrong.”
Q: Does that mean, then, that Obama opposes bans on gay marriage but doesn’t support gay marriage itself?
Carney: The record is clear that the president has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same-sex couples.
And on, and on.
This is insulting, embarrassing, and undisguised cowardice. The public has a right to know what the President believes regarding the rights of gay Americans to marry, and also whether he will do the right thing, even if some of his supporters think it is the wrong thing. The public, the media, and the voters should not accept being treated this way, on any issue, by any candidate, for any office, especially by a candidate for President of the United States, and particularly this President who pledged to be open and transparent to the American public.
A couple related ethics notes:
- Joe Biden is an Ethics Hero in this episode. Speaking the truth when it supports human and constitutional rights of citizens should never be called a “gaffe.” The fact that Milbank called Biden’s statement this and that most journalists agree says a lot about the cynicism infecting our culture.
- I feel sorry for Jay Carney. The incident reinforces the impression that his job is that of a paid liar. The problem is that once you lie enough in the role, there is no useful purpose served by the job at all, accepting the dubious proposition that lying to the press is a legitimate function for the President’s team. I am naive, I suppose: I think if the press secretary can’t tell the whole truth, he should refuse to answer the question at all.
- I know I have beaten this particular dead horse into an ugly pulp, but…it is obvious, especially in Washington, D.C., that the media regards Joe Biden as at best a scary loose cannon, and at worst the Administration’s equivalent of Uncle Billy at the Bailey Savings and Loan. Not only that, most of them had the same opinion—which is accurate, by the way—when Biden was named as Obama’s running mate in 2008. It is fair to say that there are very few reporters who are comfortable with the idea that Biden is a heartbeat away from the Presidency, yet most of the media spent the entire 2008 campaign attacking John McCain for choosing the “unqualified” Sarah Palin, while largely giving the Democratic slate a pass on the fact that its Presidential candidate had even fewer qualifications than the Alaska governor, and its Vice presidential candidate was an incurable bumbler. This remains the most egregious and unforgivable example of nation-wide journalistic bias and dereliction of duty in my lifetime. When one of the offenders like Dana Milbank writes, “The gaffe-prone vice president had been relatively on message for months. But on Sunday, he referred to the likely Republican presidential nominee as ‘President Romney’ and to his own boss as ‘President Clinton,'” it’s not funny. It is infuriating.
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Facts: Washington Post
Sources:
Graphic: Freaking News
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
Understandably, this is an election year. Note that Biden’s predecessor did not come out in favor of marriage equality until it was “safe” to do so.
One could, as a matter of principle, support the state’s power to enact a policy while disagreeing with the policy itself, a variation of the principle that, “I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”