cooperation

Obama, Trump, And The Avoidable “Two Presidents” Ethical Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

trump-and-obama

Yesterday, Donald Trump sent out not just one but three tweets that directly interfered with current U.S. policy efforts, involving the costs of a new jet fighter plane, nuclear weapons, and a U.N. resolution criticizing Israel. This understandably is causing consternation in the Obama administration, because Trump is exercising influence without authority. Until January 20, 2017, Donald Trump has no official position or authority in the government at all. He does have power and influence, however, because everyone knows that he will have authority very soon.

What constitutes abuse of the power and influence? Should a President Elect be a mute and invisible presence until he is officially sworn in, so as not to interfere with the current President’s discharge of his duties?

For the lame duck Chief Executive, with slightly more than two months left in office and vastly diminished influence, the ethical problem is different. How much should he defer to the incoming President, and not take actions that will seriously interfere with the policy directions the new President  may choose to take? Once the will of the people has been made clear at the ballot box, is it fair and responsible for current President to actively work against the likely agenda of the incoming President?

Finally, if a lame duck President is attempting to undermine the objectives of the incoming President before that President Elect takes office, is it unethical for the President Elect to use his influence and power to stop him, or at least mitigate the damage? Continue reading →

Incompetence Personified: Six Years, And He Still Doesn’t Understand His Job.

/ Jack Marshall / 62 Comments
No change. Amazing.

No change. Amazing.

The flat learning curve reared its ugly head again in President Obama’s post-shellacking press conference. I did not expect him to admit that the election results were a direct repudiation of his leadership, management and policies, because the man is a narcissist, and he can’t process such information. I expected him to spin the defeat as insignificant from a public will perspective, and he did, noting that only a third of the electorate bothered to vote. That is, of course, the 30% that has been paying attention.

But I was genuinely surprised that he still, still, after all this time, displayed a complete lack of comprehension of what Presidential leadership involves and has always involved since the beginning of the position two centuries ago. Persuasion. Compromise. Trading. Negotiation. Repeatedly, Obama kept saying that he was sure that he and Republicans would find “common ground.”  When they did, he said, things would get done. He made it clear, however, that if he didn’t agree that a policy measure was in the best interests of the country or wouldn’t work, he would block it.

This is madness. It may sound reasonable to civicly ignorant casual observers of the government, as is most of the President’s supporters, but that characterization of how laws get made and a system of checks and balances works would produce a D in any political science course in any junior college in America. The President is obviously intelligent. I presume he’s read about the Presidency….I don’t know, maybe he hasn’t. Is it possible that he doesn’t know that every President made deals with hostile legislators that resulted in laws that President detested, in exchange for moving along policies that were worth the sacrifice? How can he not comprehend this, after six years? The man is President of the United States, and after six years, he still thinks the job is about giving orders and making decrees. 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 →

Ethics Quiz: The Professor, the Plot, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 110 Comments
Prisoner's Dilemma

The Prisoner’s Dilemma

Professor Peter Frölich teaches “Intermediate Programming,” “Computer Science Fundamentals,” and “Introduction to Programming for Scientists and Engineers” at Johns Hopkins University. He uses a grading system in which the top score in any exam defines an A, and all other scores are graded down from that point (I like that system, by the way).

His students in all three courses hatched an ambitious conspiracy to ensure A’s for everyone.  They all agreed to refuse to enter the exam rooms, so the top score, and only score, anyone could get would be zero. Since the grading curve would have to start with that, they reasoned, everyone would have to get the top grade. The students stringently enforced their plot, apparently, and nobody broke ranks. Continue reading →

The Obama Speech Flap: Case Study in Liberal Media Bias Attempted and Abandoned

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

This time even the Washington Post couldn't hide it.

Why does the mainstream media continue to do this? Why does it try to make fair analysis look like right wing bias by refusing to admit the obvious?

I am genuinely perplexed.

I wrote about the President’s petty and inept effort to upstage the GOP presidential debates earlier than most. concluding that 1) it was intentional, 2) it showed, as usual, awful leadership instincts; 3) it would make the likelihood of Republican cooperation in essential policy initiatives worse, not better, and finally, 4) that the White House, once it was blocked by Speaker Boehner, was lying when it claimed that the conflict was accidental.

This was not some calculated ideological spin; I don’t do that.  I may be full of baloney sometimes, but I don’t do that. My analysis was based on conventional and scholarly knowledge of what constitutes leadership, fairness, and professionalism. But the President’s media cheering section, which has mastered the art of making objective criticism seem like “conservative attacks”, once again attempted to misrepresent the story to suit the kind of political agenda objective journalists are ethically bound to avoid.

Here’s the Washington Post in its early edition yesterday: Continue reading →

The President’s Unstatesmanlike and Revealing Pettiness

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

So the President will schedule around this, but won't extend the same courtesy to the effort to determine who will challenge him for leadership of the United States. Got it.

It is worth recalling that back in March, President Obama altered the schedule of his address to the nation on Libya to avoid conflicting with the finals of “Dancing With the Stars.”  That, of course, was absurd, a diminishment of the office of the President and an act that trivialized the human tragedy occurring in Libya. But Obama made his priorities clear, or, as I interpreted it, his leadership instincts, which is to say his lack of them. The President chose to accommodate the Americans who care about reality dance competitions first, and the overthrowing of a terrorist dictator last. No point in trying to lead them to think otherwise.

Then, yesterday, supposedly in search of bi-partisan solutions to the employment problems in America that will not wait until November, 2012, the President scheduled his speech laying out his jobs program to conflict with the Republican candidates debate….a thoroughly small and petty gesture, unworthy of a President and disrespectful of the democratic process. Continue reading →

The Indignity of Security Procedures, Civility Standards and Our Duty To Enforce Them

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Perhaps it is because I had to suffer two of the new airport security feel-ups last week, but by willingness to tolerate surliness, hostility and rudeness from security personnel is officially over. Oh, the TSA’s trained molesters are not the problem in that regard; they are almost always cheerful, polite and deferential, more so now, since they have to virtually thrust their gloved hands into my nooks and crannies. It is the security personnel controlling access to public buildings who are too often lacking in congeniality and professionalism, and I’m not putting up with it any more. You shouldn’t either. It is our duty not to put up with it Continue reading →