I woke up from a nap to discover the latest sally from the President in the Border wall/Shutdown fight:
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day:
Is this fighting fair?
Some quick thoughts before turning this over to your comments and a poll:
- You have to be a truly virulent Trump-hater not to find humor in this.
- The President has repeatedly said that his version of ethics is tit-for-tat: you hit me, I’ll hit you back, and harder. No, it’s not ethical. But it can be effective.
- What are the odds that MSNBC, Richard Painter and Maxine Waters finds this letter impeachable?
- The Speaker of the House has absolutely no function or responsibility in foreign affairs. The flight was the definition of government waste.
- I found myself wondering what previous Presidents might have done this in a parallel situation? Andrew Jackson, for sure. Maybe Teddy, cousin Franklin, and LBJ, too. Would Reagan? If he did, he would know that his pal Tip O’Neill would be grudgingly appreciative.
- On Glenn Reynold’s blog, a commenter quoted Abraham Lincoln on Ulysses S. Grant: “I need this man. He fights.”
- Ethical or not, the President won more votes than he lost with the letter.
- I’m sure Gillette does not approve.
Ethics Alarms 
I think it would be ethical if Trump applied this across the board, and not so blatantly in retribution against Pelosi. If it were applied as greater scrutiny of wasteful government spending, not only would it be ethical, but long overdue.
Whew! Glad to hear from you, Ryan! I was worried about you.
I apologize for not commenting, but I don’t think I remember anything from about April 15th to October 23rd. Turnarounds at the refinery this year were immense, and my days were long. And then once turnarounds were over, I had to get caught up on all the work that had languished for half a year, and projects kept pouring in… I was afraid for a while my daughters would forget who I was.
I’ve been there, my friend. In fact most of 2018 was like that.
I couldn’t put my finger on my reaction until you hit it square on the head. In a vacuum there’s nothing wrong at all with the letter, but in the broader picture it’s got a clear element of retribution that poisons it.
I guess the Dems were on a bus to the airfield to take off when the letter was issued and the bus had to stop and turn around. Talk about timing!
retribution, in this case, is justified, and should have been more in her face. That’s the only way to respond to the party of impeachmentalists and m’f’kr-abettors.
More on the face? That would have required to let them get to the airfield and not tell them anything ’til they found no plane. And then have a junior officer explain them why there was on plane.
”Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative.”
Now THAT’S gonna both leave a mark AND be felt in the morning.
Oooooh, to be a fly on the wall when that hit the fan…I mean…SanFranNan’s desk!
Heartbreak!
I voted absolutely ethical because there can be no movement in the shutdown if the Speaker and house members leave for 7 days. The only ethical thing to do is try to get beyond the impasse which cannot be done if one side leaves town.
What is unethical is for these elected persons dismiss their priorities and leave all those employees with no chance of getting this battle over with.
Yes I do derive some pleasure out of this decision but only because it is high time that someone showed a spine. Where are all the pundits that say Trump is holding people hostage. How can this be when none in their favored party is available to negotiate. This shows how important these workers truly are to the Democrats. This is real transparency.
I agree with you, Chris.
I also derive a sort of gallows humor from some of things Trump does. That this letter came from his office rather than in a tweet, while they were on their way to the military plane, is really funny. It says, “Hey, Nancy. Don’t try to our asshole me. I am better at and I will beat you at it.”
In addition, that Pelosi and her cadre were galavanting off to Afghanistan while the people she supposed supports are out of work and money shows hubris, arrogance and a tone deafness of epic proportions. Marie Antoinette* would be proud.
jvb
*Ed. Note: You know, I am getting sick of having edit this guy’s posts. Surely he knows that the “Let them eat cake” line is in dispute and may wrongly be attributed to her Marie. You would think that a person with his level of education, perspective, and awareness would do a little research before he runs off at the keyboard. Please, Jack, do admonish him for his nonsense. Sheesh.
The real hubris is not that she did this during the shutdown, but that she had the sheer gall to “warn” the President to postpone the State of the Union Address for “security concerns” just before she herself were about to travel to one of insecure parts of the earth.
Absolute political hackery of the worst order. It boggles my mind.
Agreed.
jvb
Can those that voted it is “petty” justify your reasoning. It would helpful to understand this perspective.
I retract the word justify and insert explain. Justify is perhaps a loaded term.
Small minded, mean, vindictive, inflammatory, infantile, destructive, irresponsible and undignified. Apart from all of that, ‘classy move’!!
Correct on all counts. Here comes the “damning but.”
Sometimes a small minded, mean, inflammatory, infantile, destructive, irresponsible and undignified act, like Pelosi’s letter, requires a response in kind.
You’re right, it is petty. But petty is what our politics is these days, on both sides. The bottom line: Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.
Andrew, to whom are you speaking, Speaker Pelosi or Trump? Which one was acting small minded, mean, vindictive, inflammatory, infantile, destructive, irresponsible and undignified?
Seems like all those adjectives apply to both of them.
It was petty, but it was not an immediate response. A long foreign trip is a benny paid for by stiffing all those people who deserve a working government. It was petty, but Congress has been spewing petty instead of doing their jobs for too long. And a paid trip when the gov’t is in stasis? Irresponsible. Unnecessary expenses like trips should stop as soon as a shutdown happens. Travel is not necessary.
He punches back. It’s not right. But this is funny.
AM
I keep hearing this about hitting back.
What do we call those that routinely allow others to victimize them? Inept, fools, weak, incompetent, failures. I think you get the drift.
It is not hitting back when the President says no when other issues take priority which could not be resolved without her. It is not hitting back when you do not let another use resources you control to hurt you politically. He never stopped her from going, he just said not on the dimes he controls.
I listened to Joy Reid and Chris Hayes on MSNBC and they actually compared Nancy to Lucy with the football with Trump being Charlie Brown. They were revelling in Pelosi’s ability to make Trump look foolish. This exchange took place around 6PM tonight. They were flat out saying she played Trump like a fiddle forcing Trump to have a “tantrum” and how it showed she was on the side if the federal workers.
How mindless must people be to believe this. The only factual statement made was that Nancy plays the role of Lucy pulling the ball at the last second.
He’s the President of the United States. He influences the culture. When he reacts with pettiness, others rationalize that it’s okay for them to do the same. I have no doubt he cancelled this trip in retaliation for Nancy’s ridiculous attempt to stifle the SoTU address. That there are legitimate reasons for it that are articulated in the letter is beside the point. He looks like he’s retaliating and he very likely is.
It would be so much harder for the media to act like the mindless Borg-hive drones they are if he demonstrated professionalism and integrity in everything he did and not be counted on to hit back with a misspelled tweet or a rant the same way Charlie Brown allows Lucy to provoke him with that stupid football even though he knows what she’s doing and why.
That being said, I agree with you that the media behaves irresponsibly. For the past two days, I’ve been treated to articles about hamberders and how grand-standing restauranteurs are offering “proper” fancy meals to the Clemson team even though it could be in violation of NCAA rules and despite the Clemson team having nothing but nice things to say about their White House trip and meal just so said business owners can give the President a public middle finger. So, while I find it personally satisfying and, yes, hilarious that Nancy’s got to take AA or United, it still doesn’t change the fact that the President is too easily provoked (already the media is spinning this stupid trip as a “key” economic meeting).
Behavioral modification requires immediate responses to achieve learning. Any reaction to the disinvite him to give SOTU would be deemed petty. Thus, he must be allowed to be made a fool of politically. That seems to be the rationale.
Yes the president should model ideal behavior but I doubt seriously if the POTUS is the cultural leader of the US. Our cultural rot was on a decline long before Trump even announced his candidacy.
BTW
The entire Lucy with the football issue is not that he lets her provoke him, it is that he does not learn that Lucy cannot be trusted.
The government is shut down because Trump knows that signing spending bills and opening government as they demand will result in no further negotiations on the dems part. That is how they have pulled the ball away since the mid 80’s.
Pelosi is playing her games with someone who will not be bullied. That is how Nancy got her power and how she keeps it . As her daughter said she will cut your throat and you won’t know you are bleeding.
The pushover days are over
I opined in another thread today that this falls squarely in the “funny but unethical” category. I still think so.
Jack, I find your poll questions funny, but unethical, too. They are unbalanced. Only two of he options offered disapproval, and the rest offered measures of approval.
Which said: I don’t like or respect Trump as a person, and I didn’t vote for him (or Hillary). But I must admit that this one has earned my reluctant respect, unethical though it might have been. It would be a short movie, but here’s the script:
INT. – THE SPEAKER’S OFFICE
We see PELOSI sign a letter, fold it, and stuff it into an envelope.
PELOSI (somewhat smarmy):
Fuck him.
CUT TO:
INT. – THE OVAL OFFICE
We see TRUMP reading a letter. A faint grin gradually spreads to his face.
CUT TO:
We see a computer screen. Text appears at TRUMP types: ‘NEVER TRY TO OUT-ASSHOLE ME.”
But there are no nuances with “it’s unethical.” The idea of a poll is to measure the range on a spectrum. Actiually, by dividing up the versions of favorable votes, I make it easier for “it’s unethical” to “win.” I think it’s a hopelessly complex question. If it makes Trump more respected and feared, and helps him prevail over his adversaries going forward, it may be ethical on utilitarian grounds.
NEVER TRY TO OUT-ASSHOLE ME is a crucial message to send when fighting with assholes—which he is.
You can’t kid a kidder and I guess you can’t out asshole an asshole.
”You can’t kid a kidder and I guess you can’t out asshole an asshole.”
Would it be fair to hope that being placed with the former mutually excludes me from the latter…?
Oderint dum metuant.
Not unethical at all. Why I find unethical is that they can’t agree on uncontroversial matters. The wall, even if you have good arguments to say that it is unnecessary, is just part of the fundamental infrastructure and security of the country, that is, a fundamental job of the Government.They seem more preoccupied with hurting each other than solving problems together.
Trump lacks necessary moral character, for sure, but that’s not excuse to do the wrong thing just because you hate Trump.
He’s the CEO of the country. How many CEOs are sociopaths, never mind their moral character? What kind of moral character does Nancy Pelosi exhibit? We need somebody to get things done. Send in an asshole.
Am I the only one to think Nancy Pelosi is channeling Michael Jackson? Is her nose consuming itself? Along with her cheeks. Is that Dorian Gray?
Perhaps she’s become the picture and Occasional-Cortex is the Dorian.
Boy, wouldn’t she love to look like AOC. From far enough away, at times she does, with her hair dye and red dress.
When it comes to politics, I’m of the opinion that it is generally ethical to use the tools within your power to pursue the agenda you were elected to pursue and/or influence public opinion to your side. The gray areas are when the use of those tools becomes abuse or when politically outmaneuvering someone becomes personal (or slanderous/libelous)
In that sense, I don’t think either was acting unethically, I’m just not convinced either of them was operating smartly.
It would seem that either the democrats involved in the event are either too stupid or wantonly oblivious to life under Trump to have foreseen that their “fact finding mission” abroad may be noticed and acted upon.
Regardless of who was taking the trip, although I admit that I was thrilled to see Pelosi and friends thwarted, it was well within Trump’s purview to call the trip out and prevent it from happening as a waste of time during what is being defined as an “emergency.” He made a perfectly valid point in saying “Hey, we’ve got work to do, get your ass back and and deal with the mess you’ve helped create.”
It would be nice if this event were used to put pressure on the House to actually get a budget deal moving and approved, border wall and security funding included.
Part of me actually wanted to see Trump let Pelosi go. Then, I wanted him to up the State of the Union address to be while she was gone. During the address, I would want him to point out the government shutdown, how the Democrats have offered no compromise, how the Democrats have complained about how this was hurting the country and government workers, and how they cared so much that they left for a week long PR trip to prolonging the shutdown by a week. THAT, however, would have been petty and not in the best interests of the country.
In 1271 the College of Cardinals finally elected Pope Gregory X after a good three years of political infighting that followed the death of Clement IV, and only after the local rulers locked them in a room, restricted them to bread and water, and removed the roof of the room, exposing them to the elements. I’m beginning to think someone should lock the President and Congressional leaders in a room with no roof and put them on bread and water until they stop this stupid posturing and get some kind of deal done. Look here, neither side is going to get everything they want, and both sides are looking increasingly stupid and increasingly like they are only about stomping the other into the dirt, no matter who else gets hurt in the process. This is the medieval attitude that when the kings fight, the peasants get hurt, and that’s just too bad for the peasants. It’s not acceptable.
Well, I have to disagree somewhat. I have heard Trump say he is willing to make concessions to get the wall. The Democrats have just said ‘drop your request’. It seems the President is willing to give them DACA or other concessions, but they are unwilling to give him a wall that they claim won’t work anyway (obviously a lie). One side is willing to deal, the other side is not. That does not say ‘equal fault’ to me. FWIW, the peasants in this case are all Democrats (well, 95%+ Democrats), so the Democratic party is saying it truly values illegal immigrants over loyal, Democrat-voting American citizens. The Democratic Party is admitting that illegal immigrants are so vital for the survival of their party that they are willing to sacrifice the welfare of the country for them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
https://thehill.com/latino/425003-dreamers-for-border-wall-deal-going-nowhere-in-house
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-trump/trump-says-wants-border-wall-funding-sees-possible-daca-idUSKCN1NC2FJ
Am I alone in being surprised at the tone of the letter? The cutting edge is plain, but it’s artfully concealed under a veneer of formality and professional concern. Only the closing paragraph (double adjectives and an exclamation point) looks like Trump’s common communication style.
Did this go through a ghostwriter to make it read better to the public? Or is this what Trump looks like when he takes the time to compose and edit himself rather than speaking/twitting from the hip?
I cannot believe that the letter wasn’t drafted by someone really deft and perhaps slightly altered by the President. In the future, historians will be arguing over its authorship like they have over the Lincoln letter in “Saving Private Ryan.”
Heh. “Slightly altered.” 🙂
The government is shutdown because Congress can’t get their budget through. There has been no effort to compromise on the part of the Democrats and they decide to leave the country for a PR mission. For someone who keeps saying that the shutdown is a disgrace and an emergency, Pelosi seems to be in no hurry to compromise and end this. Leaving the country seems very unethical. Using military aircraft when government workers aren’t being paid is hypocritical. Trump’s action may seem petty, but it seems more ethical that letting them go.
Nice work, Michael. To the point and right on the point. As usual.
That’s a fair point. As Jack correctly pointed out, neither the Speaker nor Congress have any direct international responsibilities. There can be no rational argument that the trip was not purely for public relations, paid for by the public.
It is unethical to schedule such a trip when you cannot accomplish your job because of a blatant refusal to do so. That made it even more than just a PR move, it made it a “fuck you” move as well.
“Fuck you” is never ethical, and the return action by the president has the identical message. Therefore it is not ethical.
But it is very,very satisfying. I approve, ethical or not.
“There can be no rational argument that the trip was [other than] purely for public relations, paid for by the public.”
I have no proofreading skillz.
For over two years, the left has been taking pot shots at the President. Criticising everything from his policies to his wife’s shoes. Trump is not a good speaker, he exaggerates, and he tweets when he clearly should not.
Pelosi should have thought more carefully before sending her pious, miscalculated letter. The media had that letter almost before the President did. What she forget in her smug hatred is that ultimately, the President does have more political power than she does. I like to imagine her canceled trip is a reminder to her, and others, that if you’re going to tangle with the bull, you should expect the horns.
Was Trump’s response ethical? Yes. Her letter forced almost forced the response, and on the face of it, it’s absolutely ethical to cancel a military flight and foreign trip for Pelosi, who SHOULD be negotiating an end to the shutdown. The question is, were his reasons for sending the letter ethical? That I don’t know, but this is the part where I don’t really care.
(Cross posted from last night…)
Epic! Never engage in tit-for-tat with someone more power (and less ethical) than yourself.
Remember the Princess Bride’s Classic Blunders? Getting in a land war in Asia, going against a Sicilian with death on the line, Invading Russia in winter, and so on?
Tit-for-tat is raised to the level of Classic Blunder when you engage Trump as your opponent (Has Pelosi never seen The Apprentice? Lived under a rock the past three years? Watched the man tweet? Seriously!)
Think Trump, in the most powerful seat on the planet, would lose such a contest?
Inconceivable!
I voted that this was unethical in the short term, but long term ethical. I have been convinced by reading commentary that it was ‘Absolutely’ ethical. The sheer depth of the hypocrisy, the Democrats’ in general and Pelosi’s in particular, makes this a necessary move on Trump’s part.
The Democrats will not negotiate. If Trump negotiates, he is done as far as his voters are concerned. His voters have watched the Democrats (and the Washington Elites) pull the football away for decades. Trump knows it has to end.
I wish Trump would look at all the ways his Administration facilitates Congress, and start shutting those expensive perks down. Make Congress feel the pain they are so ready to inflict upon the American people. Like a baby, until they understand their limits, they will never learn.
If the lesson stings it sticks.
It is unethical and irresponsible for Pelosi et.al. to be taking a junket while the government shut-down crisis remains unsolved. And to decry all those who are not being paid while using US Defense dollars to take a little — but very expensive — trip is the height of hypocrisy. Good for Trump.
I did just learn that the Congress is getting its paychecks: some are refusing to take them, but it is always interesting to observe the ways in which Congress sets itself above its constituents — in health care, in retirement, and now in paychecks and expectations of political junkets.
I’m honestly surprised at Trump’s antics here.
I would have thought he would have supplied a military transport there, as is customary. And as he continues to do for GOP delegations, family members etc.
Then refused to supply one for the return trip. Cancelling their passports due to unspecified irregularities, as has been done to some US citizens Pence disapproves of when they were overseas, would possibly be counter productive.
Zoe,
Can you cite that about Pence? I have not seen a story about citizens being stranded in other countries.
Here’s one such case that has made the papers.
http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/danni-askini-seeks-asylum-in-sweden/
Thank you for the story.
However, just how does the story support your allegation? How is Pence involved? Pence is not even mentioned.
The person had passport problems before he/she left, and choose to leave the country anyway. The law and policy did not change while he/she was away, and the problem cropped up as soon as (crap, just gonna go with ‘he’ as that was the birth gender… and the cause of his problem) he arrived in Sweden.
Now after all the choices he made, he is the victim of (TRUMP!) somehow.
Sorry, you will have to try a bit harder for your smear to stick. Although your source WAS a bit left of Vox and Salon, even a ‘news organization’ in Seattle could not frame Pence.