Wisconsin Democrats have filed an ethics complaint against Governor Scott Walker.
The complaint, and the filing of it, are unethical. Really, really, really unethical. Here’s why. Continue reading
dishonesty
Unethical Quote of the Month: Newt Gingrich
“There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn’t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them. I found that I felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness. Not God’s understanding, but God’s forgiveness. I do believe in a forgiving God. And I think most people, deep down in their hearts hope there’s a forgiving God.”
—–Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, preparing for a presidential run by attempting to explain and apologize for his serial marital betrayals, the most spectacular of which was visiting his first wife while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery to announce that he was divorcing her to marry his mistress. Then he cheated on his second wife, the former mistress, with a member of his staff. He ditched Mistress #1, Wife #2, for Mistress #2, who became Wife #3. This is why he needs a forgiving God, or at least a forgiving electorate.
Newt’s defense now is that he felt so passionately about his country that it caused him to dump his cancer stricken wife (so much for all that “in sickness or in health” stuff), and later, while he was leading a party that was making the case that a U.S. President shouldn’t be having on-the-job sexual encounters with interns, using his staff and appointees to cover it up, and lying about it under oath in court, to commence a second extra-marital affair of his own. This, naturally, helped let President Clinton wiggle of his well-earned impeachment hook, and also helped cement the socially destructive public perception that 1) everyone cheats on their spouses, so it’s okay, and 2) you can’t trust any of our elected leaders.
Thanks for nothing, Newt.
God is welcome to forgive you; I won’t. You are obviously untrustworthy. Once cheating on a spouse may be a mistake; cheating on a second spouse is a behavior pattern. If a politician who likes to invoke God will lie to and betray two women who he swore, before God, to take “’til death us do part,” not to mention his children, I see no reason to assume that he won’t betray voters who has never met, loved, or lived with.
God’s forgiveness is irrelevant to the central issue of whether New Gingrich has the reliability of character and core values to justify entrusting him with great power. As his self-serving quote demonstrates, he does not.
But good luck with God, Newt.
Most Unethical Bobblehead EVER
The vile bobblehead
In Game two of the 1991 World Series between the Minnesota Twins and the Altanta Braves, Brave outfielder Ron Gant singled and rounded the bag, drawing a throw to first base. He appeared to beat the throw to the bag, but the Twins’ jumbo first baseman, Kent Hrbek, wrapped his arm around Gant’s leg and lifted him off the base as he applied the tag. First base umpire Drew Coble managed to completely miss Hrbek’s illegal tactic, and called Gant out to end the inning. The Twins went on to win that game by one run, and in one of the closest Series of all time, also won the World Championship, 4 games to 3.
Hrbek’s muscling of Gant off of first base has been widely regarded as one of the most egregious examples of cheating by a player in baseball’s 130 year history. So, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Minnesota World Series triumph, the Twins will hold a special “1991 World Series Champs Reunion Weekend” promotion featuring members of the 1991 team at the August 5 game, and the first 10,000 fans through the gates will receive a free Kent Hrbek/Ron Gant bobblehead, depicting the infamous play. Continue reading
Answer the #@!!*&%! Question, Michele!
I don’t have the transcript of David Gregory’s interview with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R.-Min), Queen of the Tea Party, on “Meet the Press,” but it went something like this:
Gregory: Do you think the government should be shut down unless the President agrees to more budge cuts?
Bachmann: I think the fielding of Don Hoak at third base for the 1960 Pirates was truly outstanding, and definitely a key to the team’s success. Baby bok choy is delicious.
Gregory: Let me play you a clip of your recent comments. Do you really believe that the President is trying to jeopardize the economy?
Bachmann: Most people think Anchorage is the capital of Alaska, but it’s really Juneau. And, of course, Anne Boleyn had three breasts.
Gregory: I’m asking a direct question…do you really believe that the President has anti-American motives?
Bachmann: I’m now going to recite everything Barack Obama has done wrong from the second grade to the present, and in pig-latin, just for the fun of it….
Okay, I’m a little sketchy on the details. Continue reading
Unethical Quote of the Week: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
Trick Question: Who are the U.S. Attorney General's people?
“When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African-Americans, and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia–which was inappropriate, certainly that—to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people.”
—-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, testifying in a Congressional hearing regarding allegations of race-based enforcement in the Justice Department, and taking issue with Rep. John Culberson, who was questioning Holder about the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case. Culberson quoted a Democratic activist who called the incident the most serious act of voter intimidation he had witnessed in his career, prompting Holder’s statement.
I am willing to give the Attorney General the benefit of the doubt and regard this is a slip of the tongue. It would be unfair to conclude, based on this statement, that Holder is biased. But his use of the term “my people” certainly raises the question of bias. As the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder is obligated to regard all American citizens as “his people.” Suggesting otherwise undermines his credibility and the people’s trust, and is at best careless, and at worst suspicious.
[Thanks to WSJ blogger James Taranto for flagging the quote.]
Breaking News: Journalistic Ethics Not Dead, Just Unpopular
The Society of Professional Journalists issued the following release condemning the Buffalo Beast’s fake call to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, in which the BB’s editor attempted, spectacularly unsuccessfully, to trick the Governor into making inflammatory or embarrassing statements. All he managed to do was to prove that Walker had never spoken to David Koch in his life, effectively debunking conspiracy theories that the Koch brothers were calling the shots in the Wisconsin public unions showdown. It was still a low point in recent journalism—quite an achievement, really—as the SPJ made clear: Continue reading
Comment of the Day: “Ethics Carnage in Wisconsin: The Ethics Grades So Far”
Commenter Glenn Logan argues that President Obama’s C- Ethics Grade in the post is too high. Here is his Comment of the Day, on the post “Ethics Carnage in Wisconsin: The Ethics Grades So Far.”
“I think that Obama is getting grade inflation here. Obama was elected to lead all Americans, not just unions.
“While Walker’s position and comments may be imperfect, and Obama is certainly within his rights to disagree, it is his duty to all Americans to at least take the other side into account. Presidents who are entirely partisan are poor presidents, and in this instance, a C- is unfairly high.
“Combine that with his pronouncement to Republicans after he was elected that “Elections have consequences, and I won,” and in my view, you have an ethics train wreck. This is as two-faced and unfair as it is possible to be, and dispatching his political organization to inject an even more partisan impact into the problem and the best grade I could give him is a D-.”
Ethics Carnage in Wisconsin: The Ethics Grades So Far
The battleground
The story to date: Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker announced a budget-repair measure to address looming budget deficits (in a state with a balanced budget mandate in its constitution) by requiring state employees to contribute a larger proportion of their pensions and health care plans, and restricting their long-standing collective bargaining rights. Wisconsin’s deficit is projected at $30 million for the remainder of the 2011, with a shortfall of $1.5 billion projected for next year. In response to Walker’s announcement and the near certainty of his plan being passed by the Republican dominated state legislature, 14 Democratic legislators fled the state to prevent a quorum and block a vote, teachers left their classes to protest in Madison, where they were joined by thousands of pro-union protesters, many of whom were organized and bused in by Organizing for America, a White House operated political group.
Let’s try to separate the ethics wheat from the chaff—amazingly, there is actually some wheat–and get an early line on the heroes, dunces, villains, and the rest as the Wisconsin budget battle threatens to become a full-fledged Ethics Train Wreck. Continue reading
Integrity Failure: Speaker Boehner, When It Counts
Speaker of the House John Boehner wants us to know that he, unlike President Obama, is serious about making the tough spending cuts necessary to bring the Federal deficit under control, no matter whose ox is gored. “We are reducing programs that are important programs that we care about,” he has said sternly, “and we’re doing what every family does when it sits around its kitchen table: we’re making the choices about what do we need for the future.” As for the president and Democrats, Boehner has argued that their approach “was very small on spending discipline and a lot of new spending so-called investments.”
“Borrowing and spending is not the way to prosperity. Today’s deficits mean tomorrow’s tax increases, and that costs jobs,” Boehner said, making it clear that he means business.
Then yesterday, when House Republican freshmen agreed with President Barack Obama and voted to cancel an expenditure of $450 million for an alternative engine for the Pentagon’s next-generation fighter plane, Boehner didn’t support them…. Continue reading
The Westminster Dog Show and the Benign Lie
Tonight is the finale of the Westminster Dog Show. The show is always entertaining if you are dog lover and educational whether you are or not—what the heck is a Plott?–but it is also a strange epitome of what human beings will accept as fair and reasonable because of tradition alone. The pretense that the judging at this stage of the show, after the best of the individual breeds have been selected, is anything but deluded arbitrariness presented as scientific expertise is astounding, because so many intelligent people not only accept it, but accept it with good humor and certitude.
A Scottish Deerhound
The American Kennel Club has exacting standards for each breed, and its judges are well-trained and knowledgeable to be sure. The Group competitions and climactic Best of Show determination, however, are blatant exercises in the suspension of disbelief. It is a true apples vs. oranges extravaganza that the owners, crowd and commentators treat with the solemnity of a major Supreme Court ruling, yet has no more real meaning than a series of coin flips. Last night, for example, a Scottish deerhound, one of my favorite breeds, won the Hound Group. This meant that the Group’s judge determined, in a matter of minutes, that the winning deerhound was a better deerhound than the best long-haired dachshund was a long-haired dachshund. How? What does that even mean? Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 