History

Why Would Anyone, Ever Believe Bill Clinton When He Says Something Like…

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

…”But even with 20/20 hindsight, I saw nothing that ever gave me pause.”

He said that in his opening statement to the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee before being grilled about his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein.

Hilarious!

Deceit is Bill Clinton’s native tongue, and he is fluent and skilled at it. This is a man who defended himself against allegation regarding Monica Lewinski saying he was never “alone” with the comely intern on the grounds that no one is alone when he is with someone. Bill declared that he never had “sex with that woman” because he held that getting blow-jobs wasn’t sex. He defended his deliberate misstatements to a grand jury by saying that he never lied, that he just wasn’t “helpful.” (It’s “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” and as a lawyer, he knows damn well that not being helpful means withholding the “whole truth.”) He lied under oath, as President, during the Paula Jones hearing, and had to give up his law license as a result.

That statement is so obviously meaningless coming from Clinton that it’s beneath his usual level of mendacity. ‘It didn’t ever give me pause’ ‘even now” spoken by a cold-eyed sociopath only means: “That stuff? That’s never given me pause. I just don’t care. Didn’t then, don’t now.” You can fill in the crude next line yourself. Bill Clinton has been a sexual predator his whole life, and has always escaped accountability. Why would Epstein surrounding Clinton with attractive, submissive, teenage girls give him pause?

If the House Republicans were going to shatter the “norm” of not calling former Presidents to testify, they at least could have justified it by calling one who could relay useful information in response to their questioning. Bill Clinton is smarter than any of them, and a masterful liar. His testimony was useless, except to prove that he’s still “got it.”

Ethics Observations On That “Proud To Be An American” Chart

/ Jack Marshall / 45 Comments

Yes, as with all polls and surveys, one should be wary of this one; still, Gallup is as close to non-partisan as one can get in 2026, and the results seem consistent with what we have been observing for a long time.

And true, confirmation bias comes into play. However, what we saw with the Democrats in Congress refusing to enthusiastically applaud the U.S. Olympic champion hockey team certainly seemed significant, especially since one assumed that if nothing else, the party knows its base. The core Democratic base looks, sounds, and behaves as if it is hostile to American values, traditions and history. With such quacking and waddling going on, it would take an ingenious argument to maintain that this isn’t a metaphorical duck.

I was drawn to the chart, which has been around for several months, because an “X” pundit wrote, “What’s going on here?,” the threshold question for all ethics inquiries. So what is going on here?

This:

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Happy Birthday, George Washington From Ethics Alarms, And Thank Your Dad For Us Too…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

It’s George Washington’s birthday. Nine years ago I wrote, in one of my annual posts on perhaps our most important President (George Will calls him “the Indispensable Man) that something has gone seriously wrong when one’s blog has 287 posts on Donald Trump and only six about Washington. I don’t even want to think about what the count is now, but here is another one in George’s column.

George Washington’s father Augustine had at one time or another run across a list of 110 virtues that young men should adopt and practice in order to be become civil, respectful and honorable members of polite society. He made George, and presumably all his sons (he had six of them) copy them by hand to aid in memorizing the list. George, at least, dutifully committed to memory “110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation,”  which was  based on a document composed by French Jesuits in 1595; neither the author nor the English translator and adapter are known today. The elder Washington was following the theory of Aristotle, who held that principles and values began as being externally imposed by authority (morals) and eventually became internalized as character.

Those ethics alarms installed by his father stayed in working order throughout George’s remarkable life. It was said that Washington was known to quote the rules when appropriate, and never forgot them. They did not teach him to be the gifted leader he became, but they helped to make him a trustworthy one.

The list has been available on Ethics Alarms under Rule Book since its beginnings in 2009. By all means read the whole list; I have used it often in ethics seminars but haven’t referred to it here for too long. The 90 rules omitted in the list below contain some gems too, and many that raise curiosity about what exactly the author was thinking of. For example, I find #2. “When in company, put not your hands to any part of the body not usually discovered” and #3. “Show nothing to your friend that may affright him” intriguing.

Below are my 20 favorite entries from the list that helped make George George, therefore helped George make America America:

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Updates On “The Great Stupid”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Let’s start our review of just how dumb our population, society and culture have become since The Great Stupid spread its dark wings over the land with the book covers above. The book, current on sale and display at Barnes and Noble among other stores, is called “Mona’s Eyes,” referring to the “Mona Lisa,” perhaps the best known and most famous painting of all, by Leonardo Da Vinci. But the publisher allowed the eyes being used on the cover jacket to be those of a completely different woman in a different painting by another famous painter. Those eyes belong to “The Girl With A Pearl Earring, by Vermeer.

Morons.

There is a silver lining here, however. In mocking that cover, “Instapundit’s” Ed Driscoll quoted a minor Ethics Alarms post from 2023 on a book about Pearl Harbor with a cover graphic showing German planes attacking our navy on December 7, 1941. I clicked on the link and was amazed to find myself reading my own post, which I had completely forgotten about. In the resulting phenomenon known as an Insta-lanch (this is EA’s third), that post got over 3,600 views (and counting) after only being read about 500 times in three years.

Meanwhile:

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“Death By Lightning,” the Defamation of Dead Heroes, and the Betrayal of Julia Sand

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I finally watched the critically praised Netflex series “Death By Lightning” last night. Friends, knowing my obsession with Presidential history, had urged me to watch it. I had hesitated because I dreaded exactly what I witnessed last night. The limited series, based on Candice Millard’s best-selling history “Destiny of the Republic,” managed to both make me angry and break my heart.

Putting on my director’s hat and my film critic hat (kind of like Chester A. Arthur in the series wearing three hats on top of another during a drunken spree—one of many made-up scenes that completely misrepresented our 21st President), I’ll grant that the series was entertaining—especially so if one knows nothing about the events it alleges to portray—and well-acted by a strong cast. I also give it credit for portraying relatively accurately one of my favorite moments in U.S. political history. James Garfield, a brilliant but obscure Ohio Representative, was asked to deliver the Presidential nomination speech for fellow Ohioan Senator John Sherman, General Sherman’s brother, at the 1880 GOP National Convention. Garfield’s speech was so passionate, eloquent and inspiring that when he concluded, “therefore, I nominate the next President of the United States…” a couple of delegates shouted out, “Garfield!” before he could get out “John Sherman of Ohio!” Garfield was stunned, and as the convention descended into a deadlock, objected strenuously while over 35 ballots, rogue delegates began consolidating their support behind him until finally, on the 36th ballot, he was nominated against his will.

That does not, however, make up for the series’ worst omission and distortion of history.

I have posted several times here the remarkable, uplifting, ethically-enlightening story of Julia Sand, most recently on this past Presidents Day. She was the crippled spinster who wrote private letters to Vice-President Chester A. Arthur, then hiding in seclusion as President Garfield was being butchered by his doctors after being shot by lunatic Charles Guiteau. Her letters told Arthur that he could not only do the looming job he felt unfit for, but also that he had the inner resources to do it well.

She told the terrified political hack that he could muster the courage and character to do what so many other great figures in history have done when fate thrust them into a position where they were challenged to rise above their previous conduct and priorities. Arthur did in fact meet that challenge when President Garfield died, earning recognition as the “accidental” President who most surpassed public expectations.

I love the story, and I regard Julia Sand as the perfect example of how seemingly powerless, ordinary people can make a difference in our society, government and culture. Maybe she is the best example. Few could be more irrelevant to national affairs in the 1880s than an unmarried, middle-aged woman confined to a wheelchair. Yet Julia Sand probably changed history with her wit, commons sense, writing ability, wisdom and audacity. As an ethicist, I saw the story of Sand and Arthur, which I had never had encountered even in Arthur’s biography, the most important event related in “Destiny of the Republic.”

Yet “Death by Lightning” not only cut Julia out of the story, it gave her words to the dying Garfield and his wife, neither of whom spoke to Chester A. Arthur after Garfield was shot. I can only describe the snub as cruel. Here, at last, was the opportunity to let the public know about the amazing Julia Sand, and instead “Death by Lightning” uses her story to enhance the character of Garfield’s wife, Lucretia.

Lucretia was one of our most literate and influential First Ladies and deserves attention, but not at the cost of erasing Julia Sand.

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No, Washington Post Editors, THIS Is What Stephen Colbert’s Spat With CBS Is REALLY About…

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

….and you all know it as well as I do.

Proving that the Washington Post wasn’t recently gutted by its Gazillionaire owner Jeff Bezos to make it more fair and objective but just to try to save money while keeping it dishonest and partisan, the paper’s Editorial Board published a disingenuous, politically motivated and deliberately misleading editorial [gift link!]explaining that the Trump Administration’ resuscitation of the long dormant—but still on the books—FCC “Equal Time” rule is simply a pretense for using the regulation for political censorship. You see, as the Post editors “explain,” the rule is no longer needed! here is how they frame the current controversy:

“Passed by Congress as a part of the 1934 Communications Act, the equal-time rule says that if a broadcast station features a candidate for public office, it “shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office.” The FCC is charged with enforcing it. On Monday, Colbert said that CBS prohibited him from airing an interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico (D). He claimed the network’s lawyers were worried about clashing with the FCC.

“CBS told a different story. It said Colbert wasn’t prohibited from airing the interview, but rather warned that it might “trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett.” Talarico, a state representative, and Crockett are the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination in the 2026 Texas Senate race. The network claimed it presented Colbert with “options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.”

“On Tuesday night, Colbert rebuked the network again, but the finger-pointing misses the point of how a zombie regulation created this mess in the first place.

“The government shouldn’t be dictating the political content of late-night television — or of any other entertainment Americans choose to consume. But that’s exactly what the equal-time rule does. It is rooted in an entirely different technological landscape; in the early 20th century, scarce radio frequencies meant that the means of mass communication were limited. That’s why Congress saw fit to try to mandate that all candidates got a hearing.

“Since the advent of cable news and the internet, the possibilities for transmitting information and entertainment have exploded. Colbert’s Talarico interview, for example, was posted on YouTube, where it already has more than 6 million views — far more than it probably would have received if not for this controversy. Politicians can compete for attention without government help….”

The Post’s subterfuge would be a legitimate argument except for the democracy-rotting condition that the paper is ignoring because it is part of it. That condition is the near total ideological monopoly of the entertainment industry, giving the Left—again, the Post and its pals—access to the controls of the powerful propaganda and indoctrination weapon television still is.

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Jesse Jackson (1941-2026)

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I chose that memorable Saturday Night Live bit above because it shows Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader who died today, at his best: smart, self-deprecating, charming and likeable. Jackson could slide into demagoguery (he was good at it), and he was frequently, even usually, a divisive presence on the national scene. Nonetheless, he was ultimately a catalyst for more good developments in American society, culture and politics than bad. But it’s a close call.

Civil rights was by no means achieved by the time Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. The stain of Jim Crow was still strong in the South, and de facto segregation was rife everywhere else, as in my hometown of Boston where it often seemed like there were more black players on the field playing for the Red Sox than in the stands at Fenway Park. The school busing controversy was six years away in 1968.

With the eloquent and charismatic King martyred, the nation needed a new leader of the civil rights movement. Malcolm X was brilliant and charismatic but radical and racist. Rev. Ralph Abernathy was boring, a pale (no pun intended) successor to King. The other leaders of the civil rights movement resonated as grifters, determined to prove Eric Hoffer right when he argued that “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and turns into a racket.” As happens so often in American history, Jesse Jackson was the right leader to emerge when the nation needed him.

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Oh, You Didn’t Think I Would Forget Presidents Day, Did You? [Embarrassing Gaffe Corrected]

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Well, to be truthful, I almost did. The contrived holiday seldom occurs this early. Nevertheless, I’m going to recognize Presidents Day with re-posts of two essays about U.S. Presidents, neither of which were originally written for the holiday.

The first is one of my favorite mysterious tales about any President, in this case George Washington, and the second, from 2015 and re-posted five years ago, is my favorite story about any President ever.

Here they are:

Pssst! Bill Maher! The “Saved By God” Belief Has Inspired Some of Our Greatest Presidents. Shut Up.

Atheists and agnostics in the public sphere don’t have to be obnoxious, but an awful lot of them are. Their explanation for where the universe came from is no more persuasive that that of the faithful (The Big Bang? Come on.) but they just can’t restrain themselves. HBO’s Bill Maher is a prime example: along with mocking committed relationships (he hates the concept of marriage), extolling drugs and debauchery, and generally keeping his Axis of Unethical Conduct membership current, he ridicules Christianity at every opportunity.

The fact is, and it is a fact, that the United States of America had a much healthier and ethical culture before organized religion had discredited itself so thoroughly, driving whole generations away. Moral codes are especially essential for those who don’t have the time or ability to puzzle through ethics, and believing in God is the best catalyst for an ethical society that there is….and it has always been thus.

Heck, just look at what a jerk Maher is. That’s what atheism can do to you. But I digress.

My target here is more narrow. On last week’s “Real Time,” Maher sneered at the belief that God saved Donald Trump from being assassinated as stupid and “dangerous.” “People see signs because they want to see them. It’s why stalkers think Taylor Swift is blinking ‘marry me’ to them in Morse Code,” he explained. “It gets dangerous when the signs make someone think God is on their side,” Maher continued.  “Republican Congressman Mike Collins said after the shooting, ‘God spared Ronald Reagan for a reason. God spared Donald Trump for a reason. God doesn’t miss.’ Really? Tell that to John Lennon, Lincoln, JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King. Look, the asshole who shot at Trump was cowardly, unpatriotic, selfish, vile, and weak, and he should rot in hell, but thinking that God protects your heroes but not mine? That isn’t cool either.”

How do you know, Bill, that God doesn’t protect your heroes for a very good reason? I can think of several good reasons for that, as well as for squashing you like a bug. Of course the certitude that God is responsible for anything is confirmation bias: my wife, the daughter of a Methodist minister, frequently expressed contempt for the faithful who simultaneously said that “God works in mysterious ways” and “there are no coincidences” while conveniently asserting that they had figured out those mysterious ways. But if Bill knew as much about American history, leadership and the Presidency as he should, he would know that the belief that God has saved them for a reason motivated many of America’s greatest leaders. It could have been dangerous, I suppose, but so far, that belief had been overwhelmingly beneficial to our nation. Perhaps even its salvation.

Leadership requires special character traits, the right formative experiences and a lot of luck. National leadership arises out of an individual’s conviction that they are uniquely qualified to do a better job than anyone else, accompanied by the passion, conviction and charisma necessary to convince others of their abilities. That’s why so many of our Presidents have been narcissists, true, but the anti-American trope that our leaders only seek power, wealth and personal benefits is, based on my lifelong study of history, garbage.

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On Lincoln’s Favorite Poem, and the Poems’ We Memorize…

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

This topic is almost tangential to ethics, but not entirely. I give Althouse credit for raising it: she sometimes comments on crossword puzzles—I hate crossword puzzles and have never finished one in my life—and was set off into one of her tangents by the clue, “8 letters: “Poem so beloved by Abraham Lincoln that he carried it in his pocket and memorized it.” As it happens, I know the answer (Ann did not): it’s Poe’s “The Raven.” No surprise there: Abe was a depressive, and that dark poem about lingering suicidal thoughts fits his character and also his taste in poetry. I think “The Raven” is doggerel, and so were Lincoln’s poems: yes, he wrote poems, and was always puzzling to me that such a poetic writer would write such pedestrian poetry. He’s nt the only one who fits that description: Herman Melville’s poems, save for the one that ends “Billy Budd, ” is also shockingly bad. But I digress…

Ann guessed that the poem was “Invictus,” which would make sense if Abe favored a poem that inspired him, as, I believe, many of us do. That one ends with the famous verse,

“It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.”

Teddy Roosevelt loved that one, as you might guess. The topic got me thinking about how our schools used to teach ethics as well as literature, not to mention mental acuity, by requiring us to memorize poems. I’m sure they don’t do this now, and I’m also confident that the declining ethical instincts as well as literary competence of today’s youth are in part rooted in this sad development.

Poetry is becoming a dead genre. Althouse excluded songs from her musings about what favorite poems say about our values and character, and I find that strange. Song lyrics are poems, at least the best of them. No unscored poem touches me as much as Irving Kahal’s lyrics to Sammy Fain’s haunting melody, one of my late wife’s favorites….

I’ll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through

In that small cafe
The park across the way
The children’s carousel
The chestnut tree, the wishing well 
I’ll be seeing you
In every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way

I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you…

Similarly, the touching Longfellow poem about his depression during the Civil War over the death of his wife, the wounding of his son and the conflict dividing his country was set to music, making it classic Christmas song that has endured in the culture beyond most of his poems. Putting a poem to music shouldn’t disqualify the poem as a poem, though the melody can enhance its power and popularly.

My favorite poems were narrative poems the celebrated heroism, courage, sacrifice, devotion and nobility. I have written several times about my father’s favorite poem, Rudyard Kipling’s “If” : the lines “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster…And treat those two impostors just the same”; has become my credo over the years, and served me well. This past Halloween I posted my favorite poem, “The Highwayman,” which I memorized when I was 10 and have recited to audiences many times since. It is about a young woman who gives her life to warn her lover. I also memorized Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride,” an inspiring poem about an American patriot.

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Some Perspective on the Ignorant “Things Are Worse Than Ever!” Lament

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Almost 14 years ago, I was directing a play in Arlington Virginia about the dance marathons that were held during the Great Depression. I wrote a post about what I had discovered in researching the show, which became one of the projects I am most proud of in my parallel career as a stage director. The essay began,

“Jews sometimes are criticized for evoking the Holocaust at every opportunity. Their explanation is that we “must never forget,” an argument I once thought was bizarre. “Who could forget the Holocaust?,” I wondered. Something so unique and horrible would be impossible to forget; it would be like pretending the Grand Canyon didn’t exist.

“That was ignorant of me. Nations, religions, cultures and groups of all kinds are stunningly effective at forgetting historical episodes which challenge their self-image and most cherished illusions. Jews are rightfully and wisely vigilant at reminding the world of what was done to them as the rest of humanity passively looked on in the 30’s and 40’s, because their extermination at the hands of the Nazis is a prime candidate for history’s memory hole, where good and sensitive people, along with their nations, communities and cultures, dispose of memories too ugly to remember. Once the memories are gone, they no longer haunt us, it is true. They no longer teach or warn us, either. The ethical course of action is to remember our worst moments, and evoke them as often as possible. We can only be our best by admitting our worst.”

I also feel that recalling “when things were rotten,” to evoke one of Mel Brooks’s lesser efforts, is to remind ourself how resilient our American culture is, and how our virtues and values as a society sometimes fail (because our society is made up of human beings), this nation has been remarkable in its ability to recover, slap itself in the face, regroups and get back on an honorable, ethical path. The foes of American culture don’t acknowledge this. It serves their agenda to deny that the United States has ever learned or reformed, though that quality is among our greatest strengths. So I feel that it is a propitious time to again remind readers here of the horrors that were the dance marathons of the 1930s. Most people have no idea how cruel and brutal they were, almost as cruel and brutal as the economics conditions that spawned them.

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