Character

Update: Josef Sorett, Dean of Columbia College, Is An Ethics Villain

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Sorett has revealed himself to be the most despicable, incompetent and untrustworthy leader of a prestigious U.S. college, an astounding achievement when you consider the competition.

Silly me, I thought the original story was as bad as it could get. How wrong I was. To recap this post, during a Columbia panel on the campus’s anti-Semitism, Sorett, the Dean of Columbia College, exchanged mocking and derisive texts about the panelists statements about how the pro-Hamas protesters had poisoned the educational environment for Jewish students with the vice dean and chief administrative officer of the college, the dean of undergraduate student life; and the associate dean for student and family support. Unfortunately for all of them, another attendee behind one of the texters took incriminating snap shots of the cell phone screen that revealed the dismissive texts.

After being busted, Sorett tried the Pazuzu Excuse (‘what I said or did wasn’t really me!’) which is bad enough, but “the rest of the story” is worse. This creep fuzzed over the fact that he was part of the texting orgy in his original statement after the texts were revealed, and then put the other three administrators on leave! Nice. The least he could have done was show some solidarity with his fellow anti-Semites and suspend himself. As the highest ranking member of the gossip group, a strong argument can be made that he ratified and enabled the offensive discussion. In fact, I’ll make it: he was more accountable than the three administrators he punished.

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Just Stop. The Left’s Propaganda Machine Keeps Pretending Dr. Fauci Is a Hero When He’s the Exact Opposite

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments


Stephen Colbert is really is beneath contempt. His late night show proudly promoted the guest appearance of Anthony Fauci last week, which is roughly the equivalent of cheering for the Sackler family. This is one of the subtle ways—not so subtle, really—that the media pimps for Democrats and the party’s agenda (“The Government knows best, proles!”) Colbert only has guests that align with the Axis; Nancy Pelosi was another recent guest, and the producers obviously have no interest in presenting anyone who isn’t fully part of the “team.” They also don’t have any interest in entertaining audience members who, having paid attention and having not been brainwashed, know the likes of Pelosi and Fauci for what they are.

Fauci, however, is a far more nauseating and unforgivable object of fawning idolatry than even Pelosi. He’s a certifiable, no-contest ethics villain: incompetent, irresponsible, dishonest, hypocritical, an abuser of power, position and influence, and the perfect poster boy for the fake “Trust the science!” mantra that the Left has weaponized for political gain.

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Ethics Quote of the Month: Banned EA Commenter “David”

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

“Fuck you, you Trump -supporting fascist!”

––Ethics Alarms troll “David” signing off after being banned

Why is this just an “ethics quote” instead of an “unethical quote”? I chose that designation because the line is invaluable information, revealing the crippling delusions at the heart of the implacable Trump-deranged that swarm around us.

“David” entered the fray here demonstrating some rhetorical ability and intelligence. It became clear, however, that he was here only as a hostile adversary and an advocate, not to explore ethics issues but to confront those whose analysis didn’t mesh with his pre-determined ideological and partisan biases, which proved unshakable. They also manifested themselves in trolling and sealioning tactics to relentlessly push a single narrative, the one that the news media, the resistance, Democrats and, to significant extent, Trump himself has fostered by his own incurable trolling habit.

The sequence that produced that quote goes like this. Trump is a bad person, and thus anything he is accused of, anything harmful that is predicted about his future conduct, any malign motives or intent that is attributed to him. must be true regardless of the sources and irrespective of facts. The confluence of these presumed vile acts, confident predictions and bad motives and intent points to racism, lust for power, instability, a thirst for revenge, and determination to topple the democracy. This, in turn, “proves ” that Trump is a super-villain out of Marvel Comics, and driven by fascist aspirations.

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Ethics Dunce: PGA Star Rory McIlroy

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

This one is what the old Ethics Scoreboard (now down again, I think for the count) used to categorize an “Easy Call.”

At Inhurst, North Carolina’s Pinehurst golf course yesterday, Bryson DeChambeau became the PGA U.S. Open champion again after Irish pro Rory McIlroy, to be blunt, choked.

McIlroy blew two short par putts within three holes, the last on the 18th, as DeChambeau nailed a tricky shot to finish 6 under par and a single shot better than McIlroy, who had seemed poised to win his first major tournament in ten years with just three holes to go.

McIlroy disillusioned his fans with his reaction to what ABC Sports used to call “the agony of defeat.” He watched DeChambeau’s winning putt on TV in the scorer’s room, then quickly packed up and sped out the players’ parking lot in a courtesy SUV. He didn’t talk to reporters, who were frantic to hear how he managed to lose. He didn’t even stick around to congratulate DeChambeau on his stunning victory.

Bad.

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This Headline Tells You Everything You Need To Know About the Progressive Wing Of The Democratic Party…

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Jamaal Bowman. This Jamaal Bowman. The lying idiot who pulled a fire alarm to stall a floor vote in the House of Representatives and flagrantly lied about it, claiming he thought the “Pull” handle on the wall was there to open the door. After security footage showed him taking down the signs that contradicted his absurd story. And this Jamaal Bowman. He’s a star in the firmament of progressive Democrats. What must the rest of the metaphorical sky look like?

Yet the story quotes Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) saying, “I cannot think of a single race that better exemplifies the battle, frankly for our democracy, between everyday people choosing their representation and big money coming in and choosing it for them.” Yes, there we have the strange progressive definition of “democracy”: a member of Congress who stoops to sabotaging a legislative vote that his forces will lose, who lies about it, and who is given The King’s Pass by colleagues like AOC when he should have been prosecuted and censured. It’s not big money making the voters’ choice easy between Bowman and his Democratic primary foe, who is trouncing him in the polls. It is the inescapable fact that Bowman is incompetent, dishonest, unprofessional, not very bright, and a Hamas ally.

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Father’s Day Morning Nausea, 2024 Election Ethics Train Wreck Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Waking up this Father’s Day [Thanks, Dad, for 1) being such a terrific, selfless father 2) for continuing to be an inspiration, a role model and a guide during my highs and lows (like now), and everything in-between 3) for loving my wonderful mom and showing it so brilliantly to everyone, especially her, without interruption for almost sixty years; 4) for somehow saving so much money on a modest salary to hand over to my sister, me, and the three grandchildren through sacrifice and smart investing, because without it I would be living in a cardboard box right now, and 5) for surviving the Battle of the Bulge] to the near certainty that my son (who informed me last week that he would like me to refer to him/her/they as my daughter, Samantha. OK! ), is almost certain to ignore this rather contrived holiday (which is fine with me), a mystery in my yard in which someone or something keeps pulling the 15-foot-long heavy plastic, 7″ diameter tubing, installed to send runoff from the gutters into the garden rather than into my home’s foundation, off the down spout and dragging it into my neighbor’s yard, and another fight with a customer service rep, who, I swear, spoke exactly like Andy Kaufmann’s character on “Taxi” but faster than an auctioneer—yes, this IS a long sentence!—I sat down with Spuds to talk myself out of seppuku, drink a cup of coffee, and check what nonsense the various news networks were spouting.

Big mistake.

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A Pazuzu Excuse Classic From Columbia U!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Paz

The Pazuzu Excuse is an Ethics Alarms term for when someone, often a public figure or celebrity, is caught on video or on a recording saying outrageous, offensive, career-threatening things. With no reasonable excuse at hand, such miscreants often default to claiming that for some reason what came out of their own mouths was not really “them,” and didn’t represent their “true feelings” or beliefs.

You know, like when sweet 12-year-old Regan, possessed by the demon Pazuzu, shouts out to Father Karras, “Your mother sucks cocks in Hell!” in “The Exorcist.”

The Washington Free Beacon reported (this reflects badly on a woke university and its leadership, so you wouldn’t expect the Washington Post to break the story, would you?) that during a Columbia panel featuring the former dean of Columbia Law School, David Schizer, who co-chaired the university’s task force on anti-Semitism and others, Josef Sorett, the dean of Columbia College, and fellow administrators Susan Chang-Kim, the vice dean and chief administrative officer of Columbia College; Cristen Kromm, the dean of undergraduate student life; and Matthew Patashnick, the associate dean for student and family support, listened to the panel discussion while texting each other with snarky, dismissive comments.

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I Guess It’s Time To Remind Everyone Again That George Stephanopoulos Is A Disney/ABC Ethics Villain

/ Jack Marshall / 102 Comments

From the moment ABC made Bill Clinton’s media propaganda guy its supposedly objective host for the network’s Sunday public affairs, talking heads show, the jig was up, or should have been. George Stephanopoulos is and was a Democratic Party operative; that he was allowed to keep this job, which allowed him to, for example, interview his former de facto boss, Hillary Clinton, on more than one occasion, should have put to bed permanently the claims of the ethically blind that mainstream media news reporting was not disgracefully biased.

Now George is apparently more secure than ever that his displaying open partisanship will meet with no resistance from his management at Disney/ABC. Asked by CNN host Abby Phillip this week what the “most important question” for both candidates should be in the June 27 debate moderated by the CNN, Stephanopoulos recommended that CNN’s moderators should confront former President Trump with “Who won the last election?”

That’s a great way to try to duck the actual issues in the election. Then, I suppose, CNN’s moderators should start grilling Trump on the substance of his various prosecutions.

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Comment of the Day: “I Guess It’s Time For Another ‘Ad Hominem’ Lesson”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

For some reason, the debate in the comments to the recent post about the proper use of “ad hominem” ended up about Rush Limbaugh, who has been dead for a while now. The issue was whether Rush’s referring to then-Georgetown Law Student Sandra Fluke, briefly a media star for her argument that birth control should be free, paid for by taxpayers, as a “slut” was an ad hominem attack or not. Ryan Harkins, in his Comment of the Day, decided to arbitrate the dispute, and did so with his usual logic and objectivity.

I do have a couple of points I want to make in this introduction to Ryan’s COTD. He admits that he never listened to Rush, and that’s a problem. As I kept emphasizing in the discussion in the comments, Rush Limbaugh was primarily an entertainer, though he was one with a political agenda and clear ideological orientation. (He was also was master of the slippery “clown nose on/clown nose off” device, like Jon Stewart.) I don’t think he can be fairly analyzed without that context. Ryan says that the use of slut has no place in “honest argumentation,” but Rush Limbaugh’s routines were no more intended as honest argumentation than a Lewis Black set or a Louie CK rant.

Nor can his work be fairly assessed second or third hand. There are several posts about Rush on Ethics Alarms; my wrap-up on his career and legacy is here.

I also neglected to mention in my lengthy exchange with jdkazoo123 that I did designate Rush’s “slut” comment about Fluke as “the worst of Rush.” That still doesn’t make it “ad hominem.” Limbaugh also apologized for that insult, something he didn’t often do, but it was pretty clearly a forced apology, though he said it was sincere. His show was losing sponsors over the controversy. Fluke refused to accept the apology.

Here is Ryan’s Comment of the Day on the post, actually the comments on the post, “I Guess It’s Time For Another “Ad Hominem” Lesson.”

***

Watching this exchange, I’ve had to consider a couple of things. First, I never listened to Rush, so I don’t know how his monologue progressed. But I would have to agree that throwing out the term “slut” would poison the well. Compare the following statements:

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This Ethics Mess Has Everything! Marjorie Taylor Greene, Fauci, WAPO Bias, Dogs…

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Stories like this one remind me just how deep and complex the ethics void is becoming in our society and institutions. The hackneyed way of describing it would be “Why we can’t have nice things.” It is an ethics mess, rather than an ethics train wreck, just an icky, stinky, pile of unethical goo emanating from people and places that can’t be trusted.

Let’s pick our way through it. Get your gloves and Lysol, and put a clothespin on your nose…

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