Ethics Alarms commented on Madonna’s inexcusable two-hour tardy appearance at her concert (item #4) without realizing that The Grand Ol’ Opry could have said “Hold my beer!” The Nashville shrine to Country Music officially apologized to fans and audience members after four-time Grammy Award nominee Elle King disgraced the venue and herself with a vulgar and drunken performance on an evening last week that was supposed to honor Dolly Parton. “We deeply regret and apologize for the language that was used during last night’s second Opry performance,” the Opry wrote on X/Twitter over the weekend. That was an understatement of what happened.
Is there anybody out there who wants to argue that complete Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution is a safe, necessary, responsible and civically practical policy? Hello?
I’m not even going to ask the question in the usual quiz form, other than to wonder who would agree Trump’s theory this other than a former President facing multiple partisan prosecutions of varying legitimacy designed to take him out of the next election, or an aspiring leader who endorses near dictatorial powers in a republic.
George Washington made it quite clear that the U.S. President isn’t a king; indeed, this may have been George’s most important among his many precedent-setting and self-imposed embellishments on the office. There have been Presidents who believed in treading carefully within a carefully moderated set of powers; there have been others, like Jackson, Lincoln, the Roosevelts and Nixon, who took the office in the other direction, sometimes to the point of defying laws as well as exploiting areas of Constitutional ambiguity.
My first reaction was to have sympathy for Brittany Pietsch, the Cloudfare account executive who somehow thought recording her Zoomed firing and posting it on social media would be a good idea. Then I learned she was 27. That’s much too old to behave like she did, much less to be self-righteous about it. Her experience ended up on every social media platform and was covered by media outlets from the New York Post to the The Wall Street Journal, and now she is the official “poster girl” for deluded and entitled young workers who don’t get the capitalist system and the competitive workplace.
You can see her nine-minute clip here. If you don’t wince through it, you may need a refresher course in workplace ethics yourself. An at-will employee, Brittany argues with the HR staff who were assigned to dismiss her. Here’s a typical exchange:
Neicy Nash-Betts won an Emmy last night in”Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie”—love those Emmy categories— for playing Glenda Cleveland in Netflix’s “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.” I didn’t see it: there are some topics too distasteful—no pun intended—even for me. Neicy’s acceptance speech is being cheered all across the news media as “inspirational,” ”powerful” (Huffington Post) “blazing” (The Times) and other superlatives.
“I’m a winner, baby! Thank you to the most high for this divine moment,” Nash-Betts said as she held her trophy. “Thank you, Ryan Murphy, for seeing me. Evan Peters, I love you. Netflix. Every single person who voted for me. Thank you. My better half, who picked me up when I was gutted from this work. Thank you.”
“I want to thank me, for believing in me and doing what they said I could not do,” she added. “I want to say to myself in front of all you beautiful people, ‘Go, girl, with your bad self. You did that!’ Finally, I accept this award on behalf of every Black and Brown woman who have gone unheard, yet overpoliced, like Glenda Cleveland, like Sandra Bland, like Breonna Taylor! As an artist, my job is to speak truth to power. And, baby, I’ma do it till the day I die.”
I don’t understand how this happens, but it happens a lot. A candidate for office grandstands on an issue, daring the news media to check it. Reporters do, and they discover that the pol was lying. It’s ridiculous. The most infamous example was ex-Sen. Gary Hart, once a hot Presidential contender. Rumors had circulated that he had multiple sexual affairs (the rumors were true) and he responded to them by telling reporters, “Follow me around! I don’t care. I’m serious. If anybody wants to put a tail on me, go ahead. They’d be very bored.” So they did follow him around, discovered Donna Rice in his arms after a cruise on a yacht called “Monkey Business”[Ha-ha!] and that was the end for Gary Hart. “Why would a man who’s running for the presidency of the United States challenge a reporter to follow him to see if he was an adulterer, when he was an adulterer?” writer Gail Sheehy asked. “He had to get caught.”
The current episode involves Nikki Haley, the anointed favorite of the “We’ve got to find someone other than Donald Trump!” Republicans. It isn’t as amusing as Gary Hart’s scandal, but just as annoying. Her campaign has made an issue of her frugal and responsible ways with other people’s money, like donors and taxpayers. “As an accountant, Nikki Haley understands the importance of sticking to a budget,” Haley’s campaign told Fox News. “That’s what our campaign did, making smart decisions about staff size, TV spending and travel. The proof is in the pudding: This is now a two-person race with Nikki rising, Trump dropping and DeSantis fading fast after lighting $150 million on fire.” In emails to supporters and would-be supporters, the same theme has been echoed repeatedly. “We run a tight ship at Team Haley. Supporters like you contribute your hard-earned money to elect Nikki, and we make sure to spend that money wisely,” one email said. “When Nikki and the team travel to New Hampshire and Iowa, they’re flying on a lot of Spirit and JetBlue flights. When they stay in hotels, they’re not staying in luxury suites, they’re staying at a lot of Residence Inns,” it added.
It is beginning to look like Fani Willis, Georgia’s African-American Democrat Fulton County prosecutor who pledged to “get” Donald Trump, really is involved in a serious conflict of interest involving the case and even criminal conduct. The mainstream media is taking notice, it is no longer a “right wing conspiracy theory,” and most interestingly, Willis has not denied the allegations, which appeared in a court filing.
“Wait a minute, God! You did not tell me,” she added, “as a woman of color it would not matter what I did — my motive, my talent, my ability and my character would be constantly attacked….A divorced single mom who doesn’t belong to the right social groups, who doesn’t necessarily come from the right family, doesn’t have the right pedigree — the assignment was just too high for lowly me. All I brought to the table, God, is my mind, my heart, my work ethic, my undying love for people and the community.”
“The Ethicist,” Kwame Anthony Appiah, was oh so sensitive answering this query from a concerned parent:
….I have just found out that my [college age] son is a “model” on a pornographic streaming service. My initial reaction was shock, revulsion and shame. But the longer I think about it, the more I wonder, is there really anything immoral or otherwise wrong about what he is doing? He does it from the privacy of his home, alone, and seems to earn a substantial amount of money. If he likes what he does, is there any reason on my part to feel alarmed, ashamed, guilty or worried?
The NYU philosophy prof essentially says that nobody is being hurt by the son’s activities, so they cannot be called “wrong.” He then explains, as I cut through the verbiage…
“If we agree that your son’s camming isn’t wrong, what explains your initial sense ofrevulsion? Part of your response might arise from the familiar intrafamilial squeamishness about sexual disclosures. That response, then, may have been connected not with what he was doing but with you, as his parent, knowing about it….you can also have prudential concerns. How would his prospects be affected if word got out about his webcam gig?Livestreams can be recorded and uploaded. Even if you think that erotic livestreaming is neither wrong nor shameful, it’s natural, as a parent, to worry about how others might react…There’s nothing hypocritical about compartmentalizing a cam gig. Pretty much all cultures — and subcultures — have ideas about modesty, privacy and discretion, and so understandings about the contexts where erotic display or simply nudity is appropriate.”
The Julie Principle comes into play when an undesirable or annoying characteristic or behavior pattern in a person or organization appears to be hard-wired and part of their essence. In judging such a person or entity, it is useful to keep the lyrics of Julie’s song from “Show Boat” (“Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man O’ Mine,” lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein Jr., music by Jerome Kern) firmly in mind, when she sings…
Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly…I’ve gotta love that man til I dieCan’t help lovin’ that man of mine!
It comes into play when one is tempted to keep criticizing and calling attention to such individuals or organizations behaving in the same unethical way they always do when there is no chance, literally none, that they will, or will even want to, change their habits. Beneficiaries of the Julie Principle on Ethics Alarms in recent years have included Kamala Harris, who always babbles semi-incoherently, White House paid liar Karine Jean-Pierre, who is forever incompetent, New York Times anti-white bigot and Trump Derangement victim Charles M. Blow, and PETA, which is reliably ridiculous.
It is true that Donald Trump will always get the benefit of The Julie Principle here in one area: his characteristic oblique and stream of consciousness manner of communicating. However, as recent outbursts have vividly illustrated, he cannot be julied—yes, I just invented a verb—when he (relatively) clearly states his intentions, beliefs, or versions of reality. Attention must be paid.
A recent feature in the intermittently cretinous New York Magazine feature “The Intelligencer” by the thing’s demonstrably inept editor Margaret Hartman illustrates the problem. Here are what she ranked as “8 Awful Things Trump Said in Iowa.”
At one rally, Trump said, riffing on U.S. aircraft carrier technology, “Think of it, magnets. Now all I know about magnets is this, give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets.” I can’t let that kind of ignorance go. That’s signature significance for someone who has inexcusable gaps in his basic knowledge, and who therefore cannot be trusted to make responsible and competent decisions. It also suggests the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Trump is ignorant and doesn’t know he’s ignorant, or he would not be broadcasting his ignorance in public.
In contrast, this quote: “First they say, ‘Sir, how do you do it? How do you wake up in the morning and put on your pants?’ And I say, ‘Well, I don’t think about it too much.’ I don’t want to think about it because if I think about it too much maybe I won’t want to do it, but I love it because we’re going to do something for this country that’s never been done before” is pure Trump Derangement fodder. He’s kidding around, but the dedicated “Get Trump!” bashers can’t resist treating such Trumpian flights of fancy as important. This is an example of why Trump critics are so biased that they can’t be trusted.
Hartman writes, “Trump claimed [the Civil War] — much like the Ukraine-Russia war and the Israel-Hamas war — could have been avoided entirely if we had a master dealmaker like him in the White House back in 1861.” Trump has opined thus before. It is mandatory left-wing cant that to even suggest that the Civil War could have or should have been avoided is evidence of racism, so naturally Hartman pounced. Trump is certainly dead wrong that Lincoln could have avoided the Civil War without just letting the Confederate states leave the Union, but the position that more competent Presidents than Lincoln’s immediate predecessors Pierce and Buchanan (both in the finals of the Ethics Alarms “Worst President” competition) might have been able to come up with a compromise that eased slavery out without a disastrous war is held by a small group of historians. It’s not an “awful” thing to say.
#5 on Hartman’s list is so bizarre that it qualifies as another example of her own Trump Derangement. Read it yourself. Apparently it’s “awful” that Trump objected to a Ron DeSantis campaign ad. This is so dumb that I don’t need the Julie Principle to ignore it. “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias!” works just fine.
Trump did nasty imitations of Biden, his speech issues and his confusion. Verdict:Pure Julie Principle. Hartman finds this disgusting and so do I, but that’s who this guy is, and anyone paying attention knows it. It’s not worth reporting or complaining about at this point.
Trump again mocked the late Senator John McCain’s physical disabilities while condemning his decisive vote that killed the attempted Obamacare repeal. That’s not Julie Principle stuff, that’s insanity. It broadcasts Trump’s flat, indeed declining, learning curve, and shows that a man who wants to be President is obsessed with grudges and revenge, which is scary. Trump’s attacks on McCain when the ex-prisoner of war was alive cost him support from many veterans. Mocking him now again is beneath what even I thought Trump was capable of. No Julie here.
“He glorified January 6 insurrectionists” writes Hartman.Anyone who calls the rioters “insurrectionists” forfeits the right to be taken seriously or trusted. Trump said they are being persecuted, which is true. He called the Biden-enabled stampede of illegals at the border an insurrection, which is sloppy hyperbole, but that’s typical Trump, and Julie Principle all the way.
The worst of Trump’s “awful things,” according to “The Intelligencer” was that when he touched on the recent school shooting in Iowa, he said,
“I want to send our support and our deepest sympathies to the victims and families touched by the terrible school shooting yesterday in Perry, Iowa.It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it, we have to move forward.”
That’s Trump, through and through. It’s not Julie Principle territory, though. It’s worth pondering. He is right, after all, in the sense that these tragedies cannot be allowed to get in the way of facing immediate long term problems. This is a competent military leader’s attitude, as well as a typical CEO’s. Our current reaction as a culture is to turn particularly horrible tragedies into opportunities to appeal to emotion and signal our virtue: Trump doesn’t do virtue-signalling, and I regard that as one of his strengths much of the time. On the other side of the matter, effective leaders have to know when to play mourner -in-chief. This instance show that Trump can’t perform that function: if he had to announce the Challenger disaster as President, he would have said, “This is a terrible tragedy, but we can’t let it slow down our space exploration,” instead of quoting “High Flight,” as Ronald Reagan did. This is useful intelligence regarding Trump. Verdict: No Julie Principle pass.
The final tally: only three of Hartman’s “eight awful things” are worthy of special attention, and escape the Julie Principle’s pass.
***
A diversion: In that video clip from the MGM “Showboat,” Ava Gardner as Julie is being dubbed by singer Annette Warner, who was not credited. This was back in the day when studios dubbed actors routinely if they weren’t primarily singers; today, the pendulum has swung completely, so the voices of non-singers like Russell Crowe (in “Les Miserables”) are inflicted on audiences. The dubbing of “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine” was particularly unfair, for Gardner could sing, and worked hard on the song. She didn’t know until she say the movie that Warner had taken over her vocals.
Warren, I discovered researching the story, was still performing as recently as 2017, and is apparently still with us at the age of 101. Ava Gardner, born in the same year, has been dead for 33 years.
Actress Gillian Anderson of “X Files” fame caused a stir at last night’s Golden Globe awards by wearing a dress decorated with meticulously embroidered vaginas. They were impossible to see on TV since they were the same color as the dress (thank goodness for that) but see? Look closely now…
Vaginas. Though she later said they were “peonies,” Anderson told several reporters that her dress was embroidered with vaginas. Why? “For so many reasons. It’s brand-appropriate,” Anderson explained cryptically.
What is this? A feminist statement, like the infamous “pussy hats”? A diabolical insult to the Golden Globes? If an obscene design can only be detected up close and with the aid of hints, does that make it less obscene? Would a male tux with almost invisible embroidered black penises in the fabric be considered appropriate formal wear? How about nearly invisible embroidery showing various graphic sex acts? What if the designs reveal to the sharp-of-eye acts of pederasty? What if Gillian dress had “Fuck you!” beautifully embroidered on it? Is a vulgar design at a public event not vulgar if nobody notices it? Has polite society vanished so completely that a stunt like this is considered acceptable? Social media apparently loved it.
“I didn’t like it when Ronald Reagan suggested it because we didn’t have the technology. We do have the technology now, and we’re going to build a giant dome over our country to protect us from a hostile source. And I think it’s a great thing, and it’s going to all be made in the United States, and that’s something that I consider productive. You know, when I watch, uh, our guys operate those things, it’s unbelievable. Missile coming in, missile coming in. These geniuses sit down. Most of them are, you know, they’re from MIT. But they sit down, bing! bing! bing! bing! boom! ph-sheee! It’s gone, it’s amazing! I think we could use…do you like that? I mean, isn’t that better than giving other countries billions of dollars? Billions! We’re going to get billions of dollars out of the country and so they can build a dome, but we don’t have a dome ourselves! We’re going to have the greatest dome ever!”
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay…
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day goes like this…
Is it responsible to vote for someone who talks like this the power of the American Presidency?
…because, to be brutally frank, I’d have hesitated to vote for a student candidate for president of the 8th grade in junior high who gave a speech like that. Wouldn’t you? It bothers me that Trump would say all that, it bothers me that he thinks it’s going to win votes by saying it, it bothers me that he obviously doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about, and it bothers me that he has such a low opinion of the American public.
Ethics Alarms 