.Anthony Weiner

Finally! The Naked Congressman Principle!

/ Jack Marshall / 52 Comments

Thoughts: 1) What woman wouldn’t be turned on by THAT? 2) Ew. 3) Weiner’s selfie was better 4) EW!

I’m sure Democrats will be thankful for this. Ultra-conservative Texas Congressman Joe Barton, in his fourth decade in the House, has a nude selfie circulating on the web. As I note above, ew. There are some material distinctions from the Weiner debacle: Joe was separated when he sent them; he wasn’t showing his man-things to cyber-pal he he had never met, and most important of all, he didn’t lie about it, immediately confirming that the selfie was indeed his. which, unfortunately, means that he is also copping to sexting the message “I want u soo bad. Right now.Deep and Hard.”  The details don’t matter, though. Barton has provided the perfect template for the Naked Congressman Principle, which is so similar to the Ethics Alarms Naked Teacher Principle that not much elaboration is required.

The Naked Teacher Principle states that a secondary school teacher or administrator (or other role model for children) who allows pictures of himself or herself to be widely publicized, as on the web, showing the teacher naked or engaging in sexually provocative poses, cannot complain when he or she is dismissed by the school as a result.

A tweak here, a word changed there, and Voila! Naked Congressman Principle! Hence,

A member of the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate who allows pictures of himself or herself to be widely publicized, as on the web, showing the elected official naked or engaging in sexually provocative poses, cannot complain when he or she is required to vacate his or her high office.

Continue reading →

Puzzled As To How Any Conservative Or Republican Can Continue To Support Roy Moore? Don’t Be. We’ve Seen This Many Times, And For The Same Reasons…

/ Jack Marshall / 43 Comments

Here is how Moore’s defenders are thinking, if you can call it that.

The Hill, from 2011:

During an appearance on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” [actress/comic] Janeane Garofalo said, “Anthony Weiner deserves to be supported and hopefully he will be mayor of New York one day. I’m serious. He is a Democrat [who] actually fights for the things liberals and progressive and rational people care about.

The man, a member of the House of Representatives, was sending pictures of his penis to women, in some cases without warning or their consent. He, like Moore, then lied about it.

In both cases, the conduct was disqualifying, and any objective individual should be able to see that. But extreme partisans and ideological zealots are not objective, nor rational, nor ethical. Their ethics alarms don’t work; they believe that the ends justify the means, like Garofalo. They are corrupted. This is why public servants like Weiner, Moore, the Clintons, and Trump are ethics corrupters. Then the people they corrupt, like Janeane Garofalo, use their own collection of rationalizations and false arguments to corrupt others.

The defenders of Weiner were exactly the same, in this regard, as Moore’s defenders.

The self-righteous progressives who have repeatedly spoken and written as if Moore’s defenders are some kind of incomprehensible enablers of evil are endowed with remarkable powers of amnesia and a stunning lack of self-awareness. The mocking contempt that is oozing from social media is the apotheosis of rotting integrity.  Boy, those Republicans are disgusting to try to defend and make excuses for Roy Moore! It is disgusting, but if you applauded hyper-partisans doing the same thing when the scandal was on the other foot, you really should shut up. (I’m looking at you, Bill Maher…)

Ethics Alarms, in contrast, has worked hard for the right to condemn every one of them, because it is character and conduct that matter here, not policy positions and ideology.

_______________________

Pointer: Instapundit

The Naked Mayor Principle?

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Chip Johnson

Chip  Johnson, the  married mayor of Hernando, Mississippi, sent a photograph of himself naked in the shower to his mistress, who then widely circulated it on the internet after the mayor discarded her like an old sock, or something.  (This is the essentially same plot the the British series “Happy Valley” employed last season, except that ex-lover so exposed was a police detective, not a mayor.)

Chip defended himself by explaining that he had sent the  shower selfie last year to an adult woman who was fully consenting in the relationship; in other words, this wasn’t a Weiner situation. Now he’s playing the victim, whining that it was “hurtful” to have his trust violated while he was violating his wife’s trust as well as the trust of his constituency, which trusted him not to make an ass of himself and embarrass them by emailing his naughty bits to his mistress.  Johnson told the local paper that he was seeking legal advice. Here’s some ethics advice:

Resign. Mayors should, at very least, be reasonably trusted not to have their Johnsons get displayed far and wide. There is no good reason for any mayor’s Johnson to be so displayed. If a mayor’s Johnson, like Mayor Johnson’s Johnson, is so displayed, it is proof positive that said mayor is an irresponsible fool with terrible judgment. Nobody who is an irresponsible fool with terrible judgment should be a mayor. Sure, the ex-mistress’s conduct was cruel and vindictive, but she’s not the mayor.

It’s really quite simple.

He’s toast, and deserves to be.

Let’s call it “The Naked Mayor Principle.”

[ You can review the related Naked Teacher Principle here...]

Vote Rugby Marshall For Governor Of Virginia: It’s The Right Thing To Do!

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments
That's Rugby on the right...

That’s Rugby on the right…

Periodically,  the same contentious argument breaks out on Ethics Alarms after I assert my position that voters should support the candidate who is the most honest and trustworthy–the one with the most ethical character—regardless of his or her policy positions. My argument is bolstered when someone like Anthony Weiner—and fortunately there aren’t many candidates like him—  runs for office on the extreme opposite concept, that even demonstrably horrible character and dubious trustworthiness are irrelevant as long as a candidate holds the right policy views. He was just clobbered in his quest for NY mayor, getting just 5% of the vote, every one of them cast by a lunatic, porn star, mental defective or ethics dunce.  I doubt that his wife voted for him. Client #9. Eliot Spitzer, also lost in his race for Controller…and he is like Weiner.

My position is shaken when faced with a fiasco like Virginia governor’s race, where a proven huckster, Terry McAuliffe, is carrying the Democratic banner and Ken Cuccinelli is the Republican choice. (I live in Virginia.) That McAuliffe is corrupt to the core, like his pals, the Clintons, there is no doubt. He is pure Machiavelli, and worse, he is gleeful about it, like his pal Bill, but without the charisma. I learned all I needed to about McAuliffe’s character when I learned that he tried to bribe Ralph Nader to drop out of the 2000 Presidential race, but that was hardly the only evidence. Virginia Democrats disgraced themselves by nominating him. I wrote about his public dissembling here and here; I didn’t even go into his dubious financial dealings andthe strange way —well, if you think cronyism is strange— he got rich investing in Global Crossing—as I said, the sliminess of his character has never been in doubt.

Cuccinelli, however, is worse: he’s just unethical in different ways. Continue reading →

Let’s Be Clear: President Clinton’s Conduct Was WORSE Than Anthony Weiner’s

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

This won’t make some people happy, but it is true.

Who's more unethical? It's no contest.

Who’s more unethical? It’s no contest.

I always feel like Michael Corleone at times like these: just when I think I am finally through with having to point out the miserable ethics record of Bill Clinton, he (or his shameless supporters) puuuull me back …

The New York Post is reporting that…

“Bill and Hillary Clinton are angry with efforts by mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner and his campaign to compare his Internet sexcapades — and his wife Huma Abedin’s incredible forgiveness — to the Clintons’ notorious White House saga…’The Clintons are upset with the comparisons that the Weiners seem to be encouraging — that Huma is ‘standing by her man’ the way Hillary did with Bill, which is not what she in fact did,’ said a top state Democrat…’The Clintons are pissed off that Weiner’s campaign is saying that Huma is just like Hillary,’’ said the source. “How dare they compare Huma with Hillary? Hillary was the first lady. Hillary was a senator. She was secretary of state.'”

My reaction to this?

Good!

Karma’s a bitch. Continue reading →

“It’s A Cook Book!”

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments
Nobody listens to me...

Nobody listens to me…

The issues at the core of the Anthony Weiner debacle—which is not the conduct of the ex-Congressman/absurd NYC mayoral candidate/sick puppy, but the fact that so many, like Dan Savage, Huma Abedin (Weiner’s wife, Hillary’s apprentice, carrier of the Clintonian ethisc virus),  Andrew Sullivan, and apparently 16% of New York Democrats still argue that his conduct doesn’t disqualify him from elected office—-are ones which I am especially passionate about, because they are the very issues that launched this blog’s predecessor, the Ethics Scoreboard:

1. There is no division between private unethical conduct and public unethical conduct. It is a false construct designed to assist scoundrels in getting elected. Private conduct is as reliable an indicator of trustworthiness as other prior conduct.

2. Leaders in a democracy should be held to an exemplary level of conduct, not the average or common conduct of those they seek to lead.

3. Some instances of unethical conduct have “signature significance“for the individual involved, meaning that contrary to the common rationalization that “anyone can make a mistake,” there are some things that ethical people never would do even once, and thus the fact that an individual does do it is persuasive evidence that they are generally untrustworthy.

Thus I believe Weiner’s story is more important than the mere sordid political drama involved: if people pay attention, if people learn, if people can get by their partisan biases and convenient ethics misconceptions, maybe we can begin establishing a better, more sensible, beneficial standard for our elected leaders, who, perhaps you have noticed, are, as a group, an embarrassment to the legacy of July 4, 1776. I don’t have illusions that I have any influence, and it is unseemly to say “I told you so,” but sometimes I feel like one of the doomed heroes in science fiction/horror scenarios who end up screaming “They’re already here! You’re next!” or “It’s a cook book!” to unheeding crowds blithely proceeding to their own destruction.

Yesterday the news surfaced that should be the smoking gun on Anthony Weiner’s corrupt character that readers of this blog, at least, did not require to render a verdict—that Weiner’s conduct was not just an irrelevant personal quirk, that his initial lying about it was proof of a corrupt character, and that he is no more trustworthy than John Edwards, Lance Armstrong, Ryan Braun or anyone else who lies to the public to keep its trust. Maybe it will convince Dan, Huma, Andrew and the rest that Anthony Weiner is too corrupt—never mind sick—to lead. If it doesn’t, I think that is signature significance about them. Continue reading →

Profiles In Expediency: Former San Diego Assemblywoman Lori Saldaña

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
"You knew!"

“You knew!”

If you have been wondering, as I have, how it could have been possible for his party and colleagues to nominate hands-on San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, serial sexual harasser, predator, and master of “the Filner Headlock,” without knowing of his ongoing War on Women (karma’s a bitch, Democrats!), so have I, and so have a lot of San Diegans. Sure enough, it turns out that indeed the party did have advance notice that Filner had a problem (though not as big a problem as any female staffer who came within his reach), but inflicted him on San Diego anyway.

So says former Democratic assemblywoman Lori Saldaña, who told the media that in the summer of 2011 six San Diego women prominent in local politics, business and education alerted her that Filner had physically or verbally harassed them.  Saldaña said she duly warned former party Chairman Jess Durfee about the evidence and Durfee was among a group of Democratic leaders who met with Filner to discuss the issue that summer. Nothing happened. Filner was nominated and elected, and the rest is history, headlocks, fanny pats, gropes, stolen kisses and mayoral solicitations of sex from subordinates and colleagues.

San Diego is such a friendly city.

“As disgraceful as Bob’s behavior has been, it’s been tolerated by our Democratic Party leadership,” Saldaña scolded. Continue reading →

The Weiner Joke Orgy

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

Conservatives will grandstand about declining standards of dignity and decorum in the U.S., happily blaming the decline of gentility and civil public expression on rappers, Hollywood liberals and Joe “This is a big fuckin’ deal” Biden, until a Democrat with a name ready-made for bad sex puns and double-entendres shows up, and then its a mad stampede to bad taste.

Wow. Clever.

Wow. Clever.

What is it with the Right: is everybody 12? From Rush Limbaugh (“Weiner is hard to swallow…”) to The Daily Caller (“Weiner blows his lead”) to the New York Daily News (“Cuomo Spanks Weiner!”) to dozens of websites that can’t resist versions of “Will Weiner pull out?” and “Weiner Exposed,”  to Drudge (“Weiner Goes Soft”) to CNS (“Boehner Won’t Bite On Weiner”) to, naturally, the reliably crude New York Post ( “Too Hard To Stop!’…”Tip of the Weiner”…”Obama Beats Weiner”…”Weiner: I’ll Stick It Out”…and on, and on–okay, it’s  abrand, I get it ), apparently conservative pundits and headline writers can’t resist seeking naughty snickers from obvious gags.  Continue reading →

Taken Down As A Likely Hoax: “Speaking Of Dishonesty, Demonization, And Being Warped By Rigid Ideology, Here’s Sandra Fluke!”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I am taking down the post regarding the alleged insane statements of Sandra Fluke regarding the GOP’s culpability for Anthony Weiner’s sexting.  I am persuaded that it is a web hoax. Though it was sent to me as true, with a reference to “Best of the Web,” a reliable source, I have traced the item back to a blogger who tagged his post “satire” and “humor.”

This is why I detest web hoaxes.

While the claims attributed to Ms. Fluke were absurd and extreme, they were not especially funny, or  so removed from other positions she has advocated that the hyperbole here would be obvious, at least to me.

S0…

  • Gratitude and kudos to Arthur in Maine, who refocused my attention on the post.
  • Apologies and regrets to Ethics Alarms readers. I do check sources, but this time I didn’t check well enough.
  • I apologize to my fellow GULC alum, Ms. Fluke, for believing her capable of such idiocy.
  • I apologize to Emily’s List.
  • I apologize to James Taranto, to whom I originally and erroneously credited for the pointer.
  • I do not apologize to Rush Limbaugh or the GOP. My comments regarding them in relation to Sandra Fluke stand.

Ethics Dunce: Huma Abedin, a.k.a Mrs. Anthony Weiner

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments
"Carlos Danger," running for an office that won't have anything to do with him if he wins it. Where is Monty Python when we need them?

“Carlos Danger,” running for an office that won’t have anything to do with him if he wins it, he tells us. Where is Monty Python when we need them?

There are periodic moments when I feel I am wasting my life. A recent one occurred when I heard Huma Abedin, the humiliated wife of New York mayoral candidate and serial penis-texter Anthony Weiner, or, as his friend call him when he’s showing his junk, “Carlos Danger,” say that his pathological and gross conduct, bolstered by public lies, deceit and posturing, isn’t a legitimate concern for voters, and that it is just “between us, and our marriage.”

As Stephen King would put it, a muffled scream builds to inevitability deep in my chest. Continue reading →