New York gossip columnist Doug Dechert (above right), during the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.presidential campaign event for the press that he was hosting, became enraged during a contentious exchange regarding climate change and shouted,

“I’m farting!”

as he did, in fact, fart loudly for the assembled. That’s The Ethics Alarms Unethical Quote of the Week, ironically, because it was completely honest and factual. Later, he provided the Ethics Alarms Worst Apology of the Month, and maybe the year, by telling the New York Post, “I apologize for using my flatulence as a medium of public commentary in your presence.”

This is also ironic, because it is a straightforward and seemingly sincere apology without qualifications, and yet is still terrible, indeed uniquely terrible, because it doesn’t even fit on the Apology Scale.

I suppose the closest would be #9: “Deceitful apologies, in which the wording of the apology is crafted to appear apologetic when it is not (“if my words offended, I am sorry”). Another variation: apologizing for a tangential matter other than the act or words that warranted an apology.” But the wording is deliberately humorous, raising the suspicion that Doug Dechert isn’t sorry at all, and doesn’t care if everyone knows he isn’t sorry. Moreover, intentionally farting at a public event you organized for a presidential candidate and announcing it, thus turning the event into a fiasco that can only embarrass the individual it was supposed to benefit, is one of those things that can’t be apologized for, like setting someone’s cat on fire.

Come to think of it, Dechert also should be in the running for the Ethics Alarms’ Asshole of the Year title. For more reasons than one.

The whole story of this ridiculous episode is told so well and amusingly by Page Six’s Mara Siegler that I don’t want to diminish her fine work by excerpting or summarizing it, so you should read it all, here. However amusing it may seem in the abstract, however, what she describes is disturbing from a societal ethics point of view. I cannot imagine this happening even ten years ago, or if it did, the people responsible would be required to hide their heads under bags in pubic for the rest of their lives.

That would have been before social media had made incivility fashionable, before Donald Trump ran for President making vulgar comments alluding to menstruation and penis size, and before “Let’s impeach the motherfucker” poisoned the culture. Back in 2015, Ethics Alarms predicted this state of affairs if Donald Trump became President, though not the extent ans sweep of it, with “A Nation of Assholes” and its progeny. Incivility, which is in the process of stripping respect for others as well as national institutions from our core values, has metastasized into a existential threat to civic discourse, and lacking strong leadership and role models who push in the opposite direction—none seem to be on the horizon—I doubt the decay can be reversed. The incident is not funny. As Jack Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men” would say, “It’s tragic.”

There are other aspects of the affair that warrant consideration:

• Dechert was inspired to start farting because, he announced, he regarded climate change as a “hoax.” Why, then, was he hosting an event for Bobby’s oldest, who in the past has argued that businesses that don’t capitulate to extreme climate change policies should be dissolved by the government, and that climate change skeptics should be criminally charged? It makes no sense, unless he was planning on disrupting his own event. Then again, attributing common sense and logic to someone who believes farting is a legitimate rhetorical device seems unwarranted.
• Why would Kennedy ally himself with this jerk, unless he’s that desperate for support? He also missed an opportunity to show character and leadership by intervening and admonishing his host in the telling fashion of Ronald Reagan’s famous “I’m paying for this microphone!” moment in 1979. Kennedy, however, “remained composed throughout the screams and farts.” Not a good sign.
• The old friend of Dechert who set him a-farting with a full-throated endorsement of climate change cant, art critic and writer Anthony Haden-Guest, later told the Post, “Doug said it was a hoax and scam. A scam for who? Who is benefiting? That’s not a political thing, it’s a human existence thing…. it is preposterous and it’s a life-or-death issue with the planet, to treat it as a zany political thing is foolish.” That statement is so ignorant and hysterical that it might start me farting. Who is benefiting? If he can’t see that, Haden-Guest doesn’t possess the critical thinking skills to participate in the debate at all. Calling cliamte change a “human existence thing” marks him as a gullible, science-challenged fool.

[I saw this story early this morning, and thought that should get a post up before Althouse did, as it seemed dead-square in her wheelhouse. We often are triggered by the same episodes, though not always by the same aspects of them. Then Spuds started having some, uh, digestive system problems, I went back to bed, and sure enough, Ann scooped me, though her entire focus was on the comic aspects of the episode. She also used the iconic “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” clip featuring “I fart in your general direction,” so I didn’t.]

I repeat: From an ethics standpoint, this is not a funny story.