It’s all over but the shouting in the GOP race for the 2024 Presidential nomination. Ron DeSantis, dropped out yesterday, endorsing Trump, and Nikki Haley will get her metaphorical clock cleaned in the New Hampshire primary: there will be no Gene McCarthy-style upset. Now all the speculation is settling in on the question of who Trump would choose to be his running mate. He claims he’s already decided, but who knows what goes on in that dark wilderness he calls a mind? He could be trolling, he could decide on someone else. My interest lies in whether he is capable of making an ethical choice.

Keep in mind that almost all Presidential running-mates have been chosen for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they have the qualifications, leadership ability or character to be an effective President. If they do, its a lucky accident. Even Abe Lincoln ran for his second term with a wildly unqualified VP, Andrew Johnson, as the latter quickly proved upon being elected. The objective served by the VP choice is winning the Presidency for the #1 man on the ballot. Lyndon Johnson was one of the rare VP choices who had the chops to be President, but all the Democrats and Kennedy cared about was that he was popular in Texas: nobody dreamed that he would end up in the White House thanks to Oswald’s marksmanship. More recently, all three of the women placed on the national ticket—Ferraro, Palin, and (ugh) Harris, had no business being there and wouldn’t have been, had they not had two X chromosomes. If the main qualification for Vice-President were, as it should be, the proven capability to be President of the United States, every VP nomination should be an experienced and effective executive in a challenging government job: state governor, mayor of a big city, or head of a major federal department like State, Homeland Security or Defense.

That criteria becomes especially important when, as it will be in 2024, the Presidential candidate (make that “candidates“) is too old and inherently betting against the mortality tables. Lousy President though he turned out to be when elected to the job, George H.W. Bush still was easily qualified for the VP job based on his experience. Reagan, an elderly candidate, made an ethical choice for a running mate. One of the worst and most unethical choices was FDR’s pick for second-in-command in 1944, when he knew he was probably dying. Harry Truman was an irresponsible, unethical choice (FDR had only met him once, and briefly at that, before handing him the slot); the U.S., as it so often has been, was lucky. Harry was up to the job.

I’m interested in surveying the various names being mentioned in various articles and pundit pieces a possible Trump VPs,to determine if any stand out as particularly ethical or unethical choices.

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Actor James Woods, who mastered the art of playing slimy yet somehow charming villains and assholes before Jon Voight gave him solid competition for seven years on Showtime’s “Ray Donovan,” has been more or less blacklisted in Hollywood for his non-conforming conservative perspective and his lack of shyness about expressing them. He appears to tweet all day now, and “X” has become his podium. The exchange above doesn’t exactly qualify Woods for Ethics Hero status, but it was refreshing and deft nonetheless.

1. Speaking of the national scourge of DEI that has inflicted Claudine Gay, inept White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, incompetent DOT Secretary Pete Buttigeig, lying DHS Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Vice-President Kamala Harris and so, so many more unqualified officials in important jobs on the nation, the New York Times readers gave the fading “Grey Lady” a jolt by reacting to “‘America Is Under Attack’: Inside the Anti-D.E.I. Crusade” by Nicholas Confessore with a mass Bronx cheer. The first five comments rated most highly:

• “The New York Times presents this piece as some kind of Pentagon Papers-esque exposé. But I guarantee you that a majority of Americans – including probably most Democrats — believe that DEI/Anti Racism went too far post George Floyd and we need to get back to aiming for a color blind society.”

• “I don’t agree on much with Elise Stefanik, but she is right about DEI. When a movement requires zealous adherence, will abide no decent, and actively persecuted dissenters, then that movement is an enemy of free speech and the active exchange of ideas, whether it comes from the right or the left.”

• “This article makes the same assumption that the DEI movement does: opposing any aspect of the DEI program is an opposition to diversity and thus is racist itself. Why cant it be okay to think that the DEI program is the wrong approach to achieving diversity?”
• “Getting rid of these DEI programs would be good for the US. We should get back to trying to be a meritocracy. Choose the best candidates, not the most diverse ones.” 
• “This article attempts to discredit the view that DEI has gone too far by linking this view to politicians most readers will find distasteful. Yet the article avoids any discussion, analysis or statistics about the underlying question. It is undeniable that higher education is staffed by teachers and administrators that are far more progressive than the U.S. as a whole, that college courses are heavily tilted toward the progressive narrative, that administrators (including ‘the college presidents’) selectively protect free speech depending on the message, and that applicants’ race has been the determining factor for many students at elite universities. Many Americans think this progressive bias is wrong. The fact some unsavory characters may agree doesn’t negate the point.”

There is hope! (Pointer: Ann Althouse)

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Let me begin this frustrating post this way: I can’t locate the damn things. Allegedly, Rasmussen, the conservative-leaning polling organization, has conducted two separate surveys of the attitudes of 1,000 “members of the elites.” “The Elites” is a buzzword on the Right like “the walking dead”: Laura Ingraham, for one, uses the term constantly. These surveys, as I will show in a minute, apparently show that a small cabal of leftist, fascist lunatics with disproportionate power and influence in the U.S. have frightening beliefs and objectives. They also define “elites”: Americans having at least one postgraduate degree, household annual income of more than $150,000, and a residence in a zip code with more than 10,000 people per square mile. We are told this is approximately 1% of the total U.S. population. The results of the survey has been written about in alarming terms by the likes of the Wall Street Journal and Instapundit; it has prompted headlines like on Powerline’s “Are Our Elites Crazy?” post this morning, but nobody (that I can find) is revealing a link. (Powerline: “There is more at the link.” No link!) Since these apocalyptic surveys are purportedly by Rasmussen, I checked the Rasmussen site. No such survey is mentioned. I searched for “elites” on the site. Nada.

I have no idea, kid.

Now here is what various conservative sites are claiming that this mystery survey says: (From Powerline)

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