Ethics Quotes

Unethical Quote of the Month: President Obama

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

“We don’t have a strategy yet.”

—President Barack Obama, responding to a question regarding the military response to ISIS in Iraq and Stria.

But hey, there’s no rush!

no-we-cantI don’t enjoy beating dead horses, I don’t like using Ethics Alarms to pile on, and I try not to say I told you so. However, if you were looking for a statement that constitutes signature significance of this man’s complete lack of fitness to serve as a leader of anything more complicated or important than a Rotary Chapter, this is it. Let’s see:

  • It is an admission of inattention to duty.
  • It is a confession of incompetence.
  • Coming on the heels of studied disengagement via fundraisers and golfing, it is proof of neglect.
  • In the context of Obama’s reported focus on illegal immigration and climate change, it demonstrates warped priorities
  • It is frightening, and
  • Even if  true, this is an irresponsible thing to say in public if you want to be taken seriously as Commander-in-Chief and as a world leader.

It is depressing to read the comments of desperate Democratic Obama enablers on various websites. One said, “You don’t reveal to your enemy that you have a strategy!” No, you utter fool, you don’t reveal to your enemy what your strategy is. (Obama has done this too, in Iraq and Afghanistan.) If you believe world leaders benefit by acting as if they just walked off the street with no clue what they are doing, perhaps Obama’s next brilliant ploy should be to appear wearing a propeller beanie and speak like stroke victim. That should really fool ’em!

Finance blogger Jeffrey Carter explains why the answer is so alarming and ominous (though, I have to say, it shouldn’t be surprising): Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Month: Barack Obama

/ Jack Marshall / 78 Comments

deal-or-no-deal

“You have to understand that if you seek that office, then you have to be prepared to give your life to it. Essentially, the bargain that I think every President strikes with the American people is, ‘you give me this office, then in turn my fears, doubts, insecurities, foibles, need for sleep, family life, vacations, leisure, is gone. I am giving myself to you.”

—-Barack Obama, running for President of the United States in 2008.

Of course, he was correct. That is, or should be, the deal and the commitment. (He also should have included fundraising.)

Even if he had not made this sweeping declaration that he had no intention of  fulfilling, winging off to Martha’s Vineyard while crises are intensifying at home and abroad is irresponsible. It also sends a message of detachment and lack of seriousness to observers abroad, many of whom are happy to exploit the weakness and indifference of American leadership. From Walter Russell Mead:

“The fact that President Obama thought that the day of an Iraqi coup was a good time to hang on the Vineyard and get on the links is bad news. Either the President blew off warnings from his advisors, or the intel community got blindsided again. Both possibilities reflect badly on the management of the nation’s affairs.”

Of course. And Obama, as he said in 2008, knows it. Now he just doesn’t care.

___________________

Pointer: Instapundit

Source: IJR

Unethical Quote of the Week: Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Cal.)

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments
Great, John, now you've killed Rep. Lee's brain. Oh, by the way: Shut up.

Great, John, now you’ve killed Rep. Lee’s brain. Oh, by the way: Shut up.

[ I am on my way back from Newport, preparing to drive for heaven knows how long back to Alexandria, VA, and typing in a small room with no desk, my roommie drying her hair and a Jack Russell that keeps jumping on the keyboard.  I am necessarily saving  expanded commentary about the ethics of the Unites States’ abdication of its vital role in the world for a later date, hopefully tomorrow. Until then, I will just touch on one particularly offensive example of the dishonest and pusillanimous attitude of so many of our elected leaders, who essentially are trying to poison U.S. culture with one of the most unethical pathogens of all…pacifism.]

 “I support strictly humanitarian efforts to prevent genocide in Iraq.” 

—-Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the House’s most reliably knee-jerk opponent of any use of U.S. military force, objecting to the President’s air strikes against ISIS

What a nonsensical, deceitful, irresponsible statement, and stupid as well. An elected official who would utter such intellectually and morally bankrupt gibberish in public has disqualified herself for responsible office, as it makes almost everything about her qualifications suspect—her intelligence, her honesty, her judgment, her education, her sanity. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Week: Blogger Ann Althouse

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

“(The link goes to The New York Times, not to some Obama-bashing site.)”

—Law professor/bloggress Ann Althouse, sending readers to an article about the Obama administration has apparently squandered 11 billion dollars on a mismanaged, ill-conceived, never realistic effort to launch high speed rail in the U.S.

Now you guys, we can only trust on POSITIVE Obama stories....

Now you guys, we can only trust on POSITIVE Obama stories….

Quite apart from the story itself, which reveals just another example of the stunning ineptitude and waste in this most incompetent of all possible presidencies, Althouse’s statement raises several important ethical issues. Admittedly, there are websites that literally won’t publish anything positive about Barack Obama’s efforts, but to be fair, any media outlet that is objective and doing its job will become, by necessity, an “Obama-bashing site,” because the President’s record, results, conduct and leadership skills have been routinely dreadful. The fact that most sites that qualify for that description are already biased against progressives and Democrats shows how hopelessly polarized, and lacking in journalistic integrity the mainstream media is. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Month: Michelle Obama

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

“Time is short. Change is needed. And women are smarter than men. And the men can’t complain because they are outnumbered today.”

—Michelle Obama, during the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit “to a laughing audience,” according to White House press pool reports.

stupid2

Nice!

Misandry.

Bigotry.

Divisive.

Arrogant.

Double-standard. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Month: President Obama

/ Jack Marshall / 53 Comments
The bottom of the barrel...

The bottom of the barrel…

“Stop being mad all the time. Stop, stop, stop just hatin’ all the time.”

–—President Obama at a campaign appearance, referring to the Republican House of Representatives.

This may be the most unethical statement I have ever heard any President say, to any one, ever…. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Rep. Elijah Cummings

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

“Mr. Chairman…This has been very interesting because one member on your side, the gentleman, I don’t know his name, said that the man was under investigation…”

—-Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md), ranking Democrat on theHouse Oversight and Government Reform Committee  revealing that he hasn’t bothered to learn the names of his own committee’s members.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, through the eyes of Rep. Cummings.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, through the eyes of Rep. Cummings.

The dysfunction in Washington, D.C., and particularly in Congress, could not have a better or more discouraging  illustration than this. You can argue that not knowing the names of your colleagues is no big deal, but it is. It is proof of a lack of interest in cooperation and collegial relations. It is evidence of the absence of basic civility and respect. It demonstrates that Cummings is not interested in contributing to the mission and objectives of the committee, but rather obstructing them.

Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Rep. John Lewis

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

open-borders

“We are all connected. We can’t just build a wall or a fence and say no more. This is America. Our doors are open. #AskDems”

–—–Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), in a tweet that is part of a concerted Democratic effort to announce to the world that U.S. immigration laws will not be enforced.

“The doors are open.”

“The doors are open”???

How can any sensible, honest, objective American read this, from a leader of the Democratic Party, and not be appalled? This is an assertion of open borders, in defiance of U.S. sovereignty. This is an abdication of the rule of law. Go to twitter and search for #AskDems: Lewis’s tweet is the worst, but many of the Democratic leadership are making similar, and similarly irresponsible statements that undermine the effort to stop illegals, including the current torrent of illegal children, from streaming across the border. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Week: Prof. Glenn Reynolds

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

 

Obama float

“To even investigate something like that is itself a civil rights violation.”

—-Prof. Glenn Reynolds, the “Instapundit,“ commenting on the news that the Department of Justice is investigating as a possible civil rights violation the anti-Obama float that appeared in a Nebraska Independence Day parade.

He is correct. This is government intimidation and an attempt to chill political speech. The float was crude and its sentiment was misplaced, but sending government agents to investigate it is indistinguishable from sending the FBI to knock on your door after your letter to the editor  critical of the President appears in the paper.

Where are the liberals who will have the integrity to call this what it is?

I can’t wait to find out.

Ethics Quote Of The Week: Bill Bigelow

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

FireworksHistory5

“The pretend war of celebratory fireworks thus becomes part of a propaganda campaign that inures us—especially the children among us—to current and future wars half a world away.”

—Former teacher and current Howard Zinn disciple Bill Bigelow, in a jaw-dropping screed titled “Rethinking the Fourth of July”

Revolting and hateful right wing radio host Michale Savage authored an appropriately revolting and hateful book titled “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder.” That kind of marginalization of dissenting opinions apes the tactic of recent totalitarian regimes, which often subjected political enemies to forced hospitalization as “insane.” Extreme ideological zealotry that refuses to acknowledge either the good faith or the possible virtues of opposing views is anathema to a functioning democracy, and the fact that we have a toxic amount of such zealotry right now is one of the reason our government isn’t working very well.  Nonetheless, when I read a statement like the quote above, I cannot help but ponder how any rational individual reaches the point where he would think such a sentiment was worth publicizing. I think it is a form of ideology-sparked derangement. That doesn’t mean that liberalism is a mental disorder. It may mean that intense indoctrination in leftist (or conservative) cant leads to progressive derangement.

How does someone come to see the colorful spectacle of fireworks as “pretend war”? The invention of fireworks predated the use of bombs as weapons. They are an art form, and nothing more nor less. All right, they are also fun. (Can’t have that.) Seeing celebratory firework displays as indoctrination requires a paranoid view of one’s country and the world.  Continue reading →