Leadership

Further Notes And Observations On President Biden’s “Soul Of The Nation” Speech

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

No, this doesn’t rate “ethics train wreck” status. The horrible episode was already hooked up to two ongoing ethics train wrecks: the extinction level  2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck, and its subordinate Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck. Moreover, Biden’s speech has some very positive aspects to it which are becoming immediately apparent. Those who praise it are outing themselves as hopelessly, cripplingly biased, ethically short-circuited and ready to embrace totalitarianism. Journalists who rationalize it are proving the critics of their rotted profession correct. This is all useful information, if depressing.

The speech also exposed the desperation and complete corruption of the Democratic Party for anyone to see who isn’t in an ethics coma. The smoking gun: the fact that Biden and Democrats began denying that Biden said what he said less than a day after he said it, and said it in a carefully (if stupidly) prepared and choreographed production framed as a major Presidential address. This exchange…

Fox News’ Peter Doocy: “Do you consider all Trump supporters to be a threat to the country?”

Biden: “I don’t consider any Trump supporter a threat to the country.”

…was not only a Jumbo, as Ethics Alarms declared last night, but as Professor Jacobson points out, one that makes the vocal knee-jerk supporters of the speech look like the unprincipled toadies they are. He writes, “I bet you thought there was nothing so pathetic as Joe “Wartime President” Biden’s hateful, lunatic, insane, demeaning, and otherwise civil-warish speech last night….Biden was categorical – “MAGA Republicans are a threat.” Immediately, the usual media and Never-Trump sychophants jumped on board with high praise of this eliminationist rhetoric. Guess what? Joe “Where Am I?” Biden just threw them all under the bus by walking back his comments. No, of course he didn’t mean to say that all MAGA-voters were a threat to the nation….” Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Month: Ann Althouse On Biden’s Speech Last Night

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

“I can sum it up in 7 words: We the People, but not you people.”

—–Allegedly non-partisan blogger Ann Althouse (she’s a Democrat), providing a preview of her soon to be posted review of Biden’s “soul of the nation” speech.

As soon as I read that Biden was going to give a prime-time speech on the peril to the “soul of the nation,” I knew exactly what was coming, what motivated it (panic and desperation, plus terrible advisers), and what it would be: the ultimate IIPTDXTTNMIAFB.

And wildly unethical, of course: irresponsible, disrespectful, unfair, and un-American, as well as hypocritical, indeed a betrayal, from a leader who promised on his Inaugeration Day, “We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.”

Was I wrong?

I haven’t read the various pundits about the speech yet, and I haven’t read the text yet; I have a doctor’s appointment and I don’t want to be nauseous. I am curious about whether any of the usual Biden cheer-leaders will have the integrity to state the obvious, and what was obvious the second the speech was announced. This is deliberate divisiveness. It is the essence of totalitarian messaging; it is more fascist in intent and substance than anything Donald Trump ever did or said.

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Hump Day Ethics Harrumphs, 8/31/2022: Fake Science, Jumped Sharks, And Failures

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

The Pennsylvania Senate race is an embarrassment to the state, both parties and democracy generally. One of the most important and influential states can’t do better than find two ridiculously unqualified candidates. John Fetterman, the Democrat, is obviously still suffering the after-effects of a stroke: if he had any integrity, respect for the process and sense of responsibility, he would step aside and let someone healthy and mentally able run. (Admittedly, in a nation that elected an obvious dementia sufferer as President, the temptation to shrug off a mere stroke must be strong.) Fetterman has made it clear that he’s going to avoid any debates, because the man has trouble thinking and speaking—a definite problem. Running against him is “Dr. Oz,” whose only qualification that I can detect is that he’s a Trump-endorsed celebrity. Well, he’s also not a stroke victim.

I see today that a new poll shows that Trump’s candidate Herschel Walker has pulled ahead in the Georgia Senate race. Are conservatives and Republican supposed to be excited about that? Walker is less qualified to be a Senator than Dr. Oz.

When do the parties (and the public) get serious about competent government? Or perhaps the better question is “When did they stop being serious about competent government?”

1. Pssst! Great leaders don’t have their governments fall apart apart on their watch. The news media’s lionizing of Mikhail Gorbachev is transparent and absurd. It is like celebrating the superb leadership of King Louis the XVI in France. Gorby didn’t deliberately bring down the USSR, he just never understood that the only way a Communist nation like that can stay intact is with a one-party, totalitarian system. He was a weak, naive, idealistic leader in a place that couldn’t support his ideals, and he failed. Why is he being given a hero’s send-off in the mainstream media? It is one more effort by the Left to refuse to give its detested bete noire, Ronald Reagan, a strong and successful leader, due credit for his greatest achievement.

2. Not having functioning ethics alarms and being stupid too is not a recipe for success. I guess it would also help to be literate in popular culture: seeing “A Simple Plan” or “No Country for Old Men” could be useful. Crypto.com, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, was supposed to send Thevamanogari Manivel of Melbourne, Australia a small refund and deposited $10.5 million in her account instead. Now, running off and spending the money is obviously dishonest and unethical; it also should be obvious that the owners of that much money aren’t just going to let it go. Nevertheless, she indeed took the windfall and started spending it. The mess is now, we are told, “before the courts.”

I have often felt that when a bank or other entity makes a mistake like this, there ought to be some routine reward, a substantial one, if the recipient reports the error rather than taking the money and heading for the metaphorical hills.

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An Abject Grovel That Explains So Much

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Ethics Alarms has frequently discussed the ethical and professional deterioration of the historian profession, as it, like so many other professions and institutions, has given up integrity for ideology and political agendas. History itself is under attack as a result, with historical censorship and airbrushing increasingly being favored over objective and balanced examination that does not distort past figures and events by the viewing them through the lens of “presentism.”

In an essay on the website of the American Historical Association, the organization’s president, James Sweet, offered constructive criticism of the trend, writing in part,

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The Worst President Ever? Part 3.

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

In May, Ethics Alarms began a review of the U.S. Presidents to separate the chaff from the wheat, keeping the chaff, and assembling the finalists for the Worst U.S. President Ever competition. The issue has gained more significance of late: President Biden’s polls are now the worst of any President at a similar stage in his first term, and his own party and its propaganda minions—you know, the mainstream media and its pundits—appear to be sharpening the metaphorical long knives.  No potential finalists were found in the first ten Presidents, examined in Part 1. Among POTUSes 11-20, which EA covered in Part 2,  there were three finalists, strong candidates all: depressed and drunken Franklin Pierce, lonely and inert James Buchanan, and poor Andrew Johnson.

Let’s assess Presidents #21-28, technically eight, but really only seven, because one of them really needs a lot of exposition. The photo above is a clue…

President Chester A. Arthur, 1881-1885, who inherited the office after President Garfield’s doctors killed him, can’t be one of the worst Presidents, because he’s among the most over-achieving ones, as I’ve written about here and elsewhere.  He rose to the challenge and surprised even himself. He also, unlike some Presidents I could name, refused to be a puppet of his party’s power-brokers, and did what he thought was in the best interests of the people. This ended with him being respected by the public and shunned by his party: he wasn’t allowed to run for a second term. If Biden is blocked from the nomination, it will be the first time since Arthur that a President who hadn’t removed himself from consideration after a single term was rejected by his party.

Arthur, however, was much more popular than Joe Biden.

Disqualified. Continue reading →

Why Must I Be A Blogging Ethicist In Ethics Zugzwang?

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

I was going to sing it, but it doesn’t fit the music…

Here is my problem…

Describing the ugly developments arising out of the Democratic Soviet-style show trial aimed at neutralizing Donald Trump by criminalizing his post election excesses, and, if possible, intimidating and harassing his supporters past and present, esteemed former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy writes in part, Continue reading →

“Freefall” Ethics Reflections: “Is This It?”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

British novelist William Golding, whom you probably know best as the author of “Lord of the Flies,” wrote a disturbing novel the year I was born called “Freefall.” It was on the reading list of a literature course I took as a college junior, and though it was easily the least well-known of the novels we studied (and is one of Golding’s least-known books as well), “Freefall” is the one that has most echoed back to me at various times over the decades.

The first-person narrator is a miserable and depressed man, an artist, imprisoned in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II and awaiting torture in a small, dark store room. In fear and isolation, he finds his mind reviewing the minutiae of his life, as he searches for the exact moment when his life went horribly and irretrievably wrong and he lost control. In flashbacks, he constantly stops, sometimes after re-living what seems to be the most trivial event, and asks “Was this it? Was this the moment?’

I thought about “Freefall” once again this morning, as I tried to process a series of absurd and incomprehensible recent occurrences and statements. “Is this it?” I found myself wondering, like Golding’s pathetic hero, “Is this it? Is this the moment The Great Stupid completely obliterates all reason and leaves the United States public wandering around aimlessly moaning like the zombies in ‘The Walking Dead’?”

No, it’s not a particularly momentous chain of events, just one that can’t happen anywhere that has sturdy values, trustworthy leadership, and functioning ethics alarms.

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Leadership Ethics: The First Lady’s Ignorant Whine

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

Dr. Jill is having a difficult month. I almost put her latest post-breakfast taco remarks under the “Unethical Quote” heading, but her infuriating comments during a private Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Nantucket, Massachusetts qualify as more ignorant and incompetent than anything else.

Attempting to defend her husband’s miserable performance as President over the past 18 months and to rebut the public’s overwhelmingly negative assessment of his Presidency so far, the First Lady whined—and yes, that is a fair characterization—

“[The President] had so many hopes and plans for things he wanted to do, but every time you turned around, he had to address the problems of the moment…He’s just had so many things thrown his way. Who would have ever thought about what happened [with the Supreme Court overturning] Roe v Wade? Well, maybe we saw it coming, but still we didn’t believe it. The gun violence in this country is absolutely appalling. We didn’t see the war in Ukraine coming.” 

Awww, poor Joe! He’s had to deal with the same challenge as every other President since the beginning of the Republic! Damn! It’s just one thing after another! Who could have predicted it?

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Ethics Quiz: The Secret Service Defies Orders!

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

As soon as I saw the headline to Prof. Turley’s latest post on his blog, “Res Ipsa Loquitur” I knew we had an ethics quiz: “Presidential Protection or Abduction: Why Secret Service Wrong for all the Right Reasons on Jan. 6.”

Turley’s article was prompted by one aspect of the Jan. 6 Commission testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson that President Trump ordered his official SUV to take him to the U.S. Capitol to be on hand with his supporters as they rallied (it turned out to be a “mostly peaceful” rally) against what Trump had told them was the stolen 2020 election. According to the witness, that she was told that T his Secret Service security team refused, causing the President to become furious.

Turley’s take, in brief:

…the Secret Service is trained to take immediate action to protect a president. On the other hand, it cannot effectively control the presidency by controlling a president like a modern Praetorian Guard. In the end, if this account is true, the security team was likely wrong in refusing the order of the President to be taken to Capitol Hill….Trump intended to do exactly what he promised and ordered the Secret Service to take him to the Capitol. But Tony Ornato, White House deputy chief of staff for operations, and Bobby Engel, who headed Trump’s security detail, reportedly refused.

…If true, the security team’s motivation certainly was commendable. It probably prevented Jan. 6 from getting much, much worse…what was the authority of the security team to refuse a direct order from a sitting president to go to Congress?

…The Secret Service has always assumed discretion in seizing a president to protect him from immediate harm [but there was no immediate harm threatened]…Trump reportedly decided he wanted to lead the protests to the Capitol and didn’t care about the security uncertainties — and he actually had a right to do so. Presidents can elect to put themselves in harm’s way… The Secret Service has no authority to put a president into effective custody against his will… In Trump’s case, he reportedly said he did not want to go back to the White House but was taken there anyway.

…This act of disobedience may have saved the country from an even greater crisis…

In the end, the security team was correct on the merits but probably wrong on the law. This was not an unlawful order, and a president must be able to control his own travel. In other words, the agents were wrong for all the right reasons.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is: Continue reading →

“The Cassidy Hutchinson Fiasco”…Addendum

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Lest I be accused of minimizing the Cassidy Hutchinson testimony before the House January 6 Star Chamber this week, I direct EA readers to to this National Review article by the usually fair and perceptive Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor. He calls the testimony “devastating” and inveighs, “Things will not be the same after this.“

I don’t know what he thinks isn’t going to be the same; maybe you can enlighten me. Are there really people out there who will be surprised that Trump threw tantrums, objects and ketchup bottles, or that when he was angry and excited, he was irrational? Does McCarthy really not know that many Presidents, in private, with staff, in meetings, and similarly dealing with the most stressful jobs imaginable, have behaved outrageously, except that in their case did not have dozens of leakers, disloyal aides and other staff and others determined to undermine them as well as an almost unanimously hostile press to publicize rumors, gossip, suspicions and facts indiscriminately? Really? Presidents, as a group, are not normal or emotionally healthy: if they were, they wouldn’t have sought the Presidency or achieved it. Is Trump worse than most, or even all in this regard? Maybe, probably; why do you think Ethics Alarms kept repeating for over a year that he must never be elected? Does McCarthy not know the history of the Type A CEO personality in this country? About Henry Ford employing a guy whose sole job was to chop the desks of fired Ford Executive into kindling so they would know they had been fired? Nevertheless, the fact that Trump acted and talked like anyone paying attention knew he would act and talk doesn’t mean he committed crimes.

Furthermore, once again we are getting “Trump wanted to do X” and “Trump said Y” while his staff and the Secret Service obstructed him when his stated desires were extreme, rash, an abuse of power, or just plain nuts. The staff did their jobs, in other words, just like dozens of Presidential staffs have done in other administrations. I’m impressed, in fact: Trump, thanks to the most competent old hands in the Washington swamp being bullied away or scared off for fear of becoming pariahs and not getting invited to swank Capital Hill wine parties, had a distinctly sub-par batch of advisors. They came through when they had to. Good for them. They were far from the first to stop a POTUS from doing stupid or reckless things.

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