I have to give W. credit for a good recovery, though, or at least as good a recovery as anyone could manage.
Still, the ethics issues is competence and responsibility. Seventy-five or not, if you are in the public spotlight and a former or current President, there are some gaffes you either must be sure you don’t make, or you stay away from the podium.
No, the Ethics Dunce President of the headline isn’t Joe Biden, despite the photo above of him bizarrely lowering his mask to shout at someone during the 9-11 ceremony. Does Joe even know how masks are supposed to work? If he doesn’t understand that, what business does he have dictating how citizens need to protect themselves and others from the Wuhan virus
? Anyway, it’s not Joe, and it’s not Clinton or Obama either. No, it’s not even Donald Trump, though accepting cash to provide live commentary along with his son on a pay-per-view stunt fight between 58-year-old Evander Holyfield (retired for a decade) and a 44-year-old mixed martial artist, Vitor Belfort on the 20th anniversary of the attacks is about as undignified an activity by a former POTUS as I can imagine. It’s—drum-roll!— George W. Bush!
But I’ll get to him in a minute, first let’s identify the unethical principal.
That would be the principal of Eastlake High School in Sammamish, Washington—Oh! Washington! It all makes sense now!— Chris Bede, who cancelled a Patriot’s Day theme at the school’s football game the day before the 20th anniversary. Students wanted to do something to commemorate the tragedy, and were prepared to wear red, white and blue.
Oh NO! The colors of the AMERICAN FLAG!
After conferring with staff, however, Bede put the kibosh on the tribute. “Our leadership teachers made this decision and explained it to students,” Bede wrote. “I know tomorrow is 9/11 and understand the sacrifice and values our flag represents, but I think they just did not want to unintentionally cause offense to some who see it differently.”
You know, like all those students in the Al Qida and “1619” clubs.
The principal is a weenie and an idiot, and cannot be trusted to oversee koi pond feeding, much less education.
All of a sudden I am inundated with Comments of the Day. This one, by Michael, is the most recent, but I am jumping it in the queue because it provides a provocative counterpoint to today’s essay on the John Lewis funeral.
Here is Michael’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Observations On The John Lewis Funeral”:
First, W. I listened to every speech,, every eulogy. I tried to follow every nuance. W’s presence and his speech were healing in nature, and I (am I alone in this?) believe that is why he was there and why he spoke as he did. It therefore moved me, but of course that is an emotional rather than logical response. Was it unethical for W to speak that way or for me to respond as I did? I think not, if what we are really discussing is ethics and not politics and ideologies.
What about Obama? I did not “like” his eulogy, but it was not speaking to me. It was a funeral, people! He was consistent with the spirit of Lewis. No matter what one thinks about Lewis’ merits as a legislator or his oppositional “stunts” toward those with whom he disagrees, there is little doubt that his reputation as a “fighter” for justice for African Americans was earned and is admirable. For Pete’s (John’s) sake, the 14th Amendment came into effect 152 years ago, the progress made after the protests of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s was more than half a century ago, and here we are; still trying to address (as they must be) racism, inequality, and justice. No, Obama’s speech was not out of place for a funeral. The primary purpose of a funeral is to honor the dead; and Obama did indeed say “what John Lewis would have liked to hear”. Continue reading
—-Ellen DeGeneres, countering social media criticism of her hanging out with former President George W. Bush at a Dallas Cowboys game.
She prefaced that comment with this:
“When we were invited, I was aware that I was going to be surrounded with people from very different views and beliefs. And I’m not talking about politics… I was rooting for the Packers. So I had to hide my cheese hat in [her spouse] Portia’s purse. People were upset. “They thought, why is a gay Hollywood liberal sitting next to a conservative Republican president?… A lot of people were mad. And they did what people do when they’re mad… they tweet.”
If they are morons, that is. These are the people who harass those wearing MAGA hats, who won’t speak to family members who voted differently than they did, who seek to boycott companies and individual who contribute to causes they oppose. They are unethical citizens and corrupted human beings. Continue reading
I confess: I miss New England…
Thank God it’s Saturday.
1 The definition of “courage” being used to describe some of the late-to-the-party revelations of Harvey Weinstein’s victims is more than a bit off. For example, Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o’s op-ed, in which she talked about her own harassment by Weinstein, was hailed by Kerry Washington, Ellen DeGeneris and others, including singer Janelle Monae, who wrote, “My hero. Thank you for your bravery. Thank you for using your voice.”
Bravery? Nyong’o’s piece could be fairly described as kicking a dead horse when he’s down. There is no danger to Nyong’o now in joining the throng accusing and exposing Weinstein, whose head is on a metaphorical pike in Hollywood. Indeed, claiming victimhood now acquires sympathy and declares that one is joining one’s peers in a virtuous quest. There is nothing wrong with her op-ed or the fact that she wrote it, but it isn’t brave. It would have been brave if she had written it while Weinstein had power…and was still using that power to intimidate and exploit actresses
2. A recent quiz in the New York Times threw some light, or maybe ice water, on the concept of “hate speech.” The quiz asked Times readers to judge whether a statement was hate speech, and contrasted the results with Facebook’s hate speech policy, and the kind of statement would be removed from the social media platform as violating its standards. Facebook defines hate speech as:
Here were the samples; Times readers were asked to vote yes or no to the question, “Would this statement meet Facebook’s criteria for hate speech?”
A. “Why do Indians always smell like curry?! They stink!”
B. “Poor black people should still sit at the back of the bus.”
C. “White men are assholes.”
D. “Keep ‘trans’ men out of girls bathrooms!”
E. “Female sports reporters need to be hit in the head with hockey pucks.”
F. I’ll never trust a Muslim immigrant… they’re all thieves and robbers.”
The Answers:
A. Facebook: Hate speech. Times readers: 75% yes, 25% no.
B. Facebook: Not hate speech. Times readers: 92% yes, 8% no.
C. Facebook: Hate speech. Times readers: 48% yes, 52% no.
D. Facebook: It depends on the context. Times readers: 57% yes, 43% no.
E. Facebook: Not hate speech. Times readers: 80% yes, 20% no.
F. Facebook: Not hate speech. Times readers: 91% yes, 9% no.
Ethics Alarms: the concept of hate speech is a dangerous, intentionally vague, manufactured category of speech pointing to restrictions of free expression. There is hateful speech, insulting speech, bigoted speech, biased speech, cruel speech, uncivil speech and rude speech, but all of it is still protected speech.
The tell is C. Times readers only voted that one statement wasn’t hate speech, the one that denigrated all white men. Of course they did. By Facebook standards, that vote is hate speech. I think.
Facebook can ban whatever speech it chooses, of course. The fact that it engages in this kind of vague, inconsistent, bias-laden censorship, however, tells us how much we should trust it: Not at all.
3. Speaking of bias, the Trump-haters in the news media—which is to say, the news media—were thrilled that both Barack Obama and George W. Bush delivered, on the same day, statements that were taken as rebukes to President Trump without mentioning him by name. Both Presidents were treading in serious hypocrisy mine fields, and neither were called on it sufficiently. Bush spoke of “fading confidence” in free markets: Gee, who was President when insufficiently regulated capitalists crashed the world economy? Obama, even more cynically, pointed to social, racial and economic schisms after his eight years of aggravating and exploiting them. Both Bush and Obama—and for them, this is a despicable ethics foul—conflated illegal immigration with immigration, to the seal-flipper applause of the open-border crowd.
The significance of these dual attacks is less than it appears. Bothex-POTUSes are motivated by personal animus and as well as personal bias. President Trump is doing an excellent job, as promised, of erasing Obama’s few substantive achievements and policy initiatives from the record, and he has only been at it for less than a year. Are you a a successful President if the primary lasting effect of your administration is reversal of progress in racial reconciliation? Obama’s enmity is predictable, but hardly based on objective consideration. Bush’s attack is even less so. Candidate Trump’s attacks on President Bush’s brother were nasty and personal; the entire family has made no secret of the fact that it won’t forget, and hates the President’s guts/
The real ethics lesson, as well as a practical policy lesson is that being gratuitously mean to people isn’t just unethical, it is incompetent for a leader. This is one more area where the President shows a self-destructive lack of control and prudence as well as a flat learning curve. At a recent event, Paul Ryan, another target of Trump’s personal insults, mocked the President. John McCain has clearly decided that he will do whatever he can to undermine him until his last breath. Not only do the various public figures Trump needlessly insults and attacks occasionally have the opportunity to strike back in substantive ways, they also have supporters who will side with them even when those strikes are unfair or petty.
Deliberately making enemies is an example of life incompetence. It is so for a librarian or a short-order cook; it is even more so for a leader. It just makes it harder for you to do your job.
Why would you do that?
4. And now that Hugh Heffner is dead, Playboy is trying to make him roll over in his grave by announcing that it will have its first transgender Playmate.
Is this Ick, or ethics? Presumably, if the magazine has any integrity at all, Playboy chooses its Playmates according to their aesthetic qualities, not their medical history. These are women. Stipulated: French model Ines Rau is a woman, now. Why is her selection focusing on how she got to be one?
Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Rau wasn’t chosen because she is a beautiful woman, though I am not saying that she isn’t. She was chosen because she is transgender, and beautiful enough. This was affirmative action. Reports say she is honored. Why isn’t she insulted? If President Obama told Sonia Sotomayor that she was being nominated as a Supreme Court Justice not because she is especially qualified, but because she is Hispanic, would Sotomayor have been pleased?
Rau is being exploited, as Playboy treats the transgender social issue as a fad, to sell magazines and get publicity. Predictably, many of Playboy’s readers are objecting for the wrong reasons: they are bigots. Playboy’s social media response is telling: “Standing on the right side of history.” This is, as Ethics Alarms has pointed out before, a facile dodge and a rationalization. “We’re on the right side of history” is weak variation of the Number 1 rationalization on the list, “Everybody does it.” It means “Everybody’s going to do it, just you wait and see.”
Color me dubious. Heterosexual men who buy girlie magazines are going to find transgender women more beautiful and sexually arousing because they once were biologically male?
Sure, Playboy. Whatever you say.
In the first week of March, in the midst of the over-blown flap regarding Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ two meetings with the Russian ambassador, President Trump issued arguably his most explosive tweet yet:
“How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!.
Later, he tweeted,
“I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”
It has been more than a week, and we know only a little more about what prompted this extraordinary accusation than we did then. However, there are some relevant ethics point to be made. Here we go…
1. It is irresponsible and unpresidential to issue tweets like this. It is also unfair. If the Trump administration wants to make a formal complaint, charge or indictment, or announce an investigation, it should be made through proper channels, not social media. That stipulated, he will not stop doing this, and at some point we will have to accept it. Is this how Presidents communicate? It is now.
2. Thus the tweet is unethical even if it is true. However, the fact that it is unethical, or that Trump the Liar sent it, doesn’t mean it is untrue. An astounding number of pundits and journalists have made exactly that assumption, proving their bias against the President and their knee-jerk defensiveness regarding former President Obama.
3. The tweet cannot be called a “lie,” and anyone who does call it a lie based on what is known is revealing their confirmation bias.
4. One more point about the tweet itself: the fact that it has a typo and the level of articulation of the average 9th grader is itself an ethics breach. The President should not sanctify carelessness, or seem to embrace it. He is a role model. Nor should a significant charge be written in haste, as this obviously was.
5. There seems to be a significant possibility that the President was trolling. Having had enough of the months long, absolutely evidence-free news media and Democrat innuendos that his campaign was coordinating election tampering with the Russians, he may have decided to make a sensational, unsubstantiated charge of his own to get the Russian hacking speculation off the front pages. If it was trolling, it was excellent trolling. The McCarthyism purveyors deserved it; the accusation was a deft tit-for-tat, one of the President’s favorite rationalizations.
6. As an example of what Trump has been and is being subjected to, we have Rep. Keith Ellison, vice-chair of the DNC. He told Alisyn Camerota on CNN’s “New Day last week,”
“This is stunning when you think about it. Far worse than Watergate, when you believe a hostile foreign power engaged in an attempt, and with the collusion of the sitting administration to manipulate an election.”
By sheerest moral luck, Camerota that day was feeling ethical, so she actually corrected a Trump-basher from her own party, said, “Well you don’t know that,” and pointed out that there is no evidence of collusion.
“I’m not saying there was collusion, I’m saying those meetings indicate that there could be, and I think that needs to be investigated,” Ellison then said, immediately after saying there was collusion.
These are awful, vicious, conscience- free people who subcribe to total political war and the ends justify the means. They are trying to bring down an elected government without winning an election. Even that does not justify treating them unethically, BUT… Continue reading
The Donald Trump Presidential Candidacy Ethics Train Wreck is so deadly that the nation will be forced to board the Hillary Clinton Presidential Candidacy Ethics Train Wreck to survive it, as a broken back, a smashed face and need for multiple organ transplants are still more survivable than a damaged brain and a crushed heart.
Like all political Ethics Train Wrecks, however, it does allow us to learn a great deal about various pundits, politicians and public figures. Here are some early results from the wreckage once known as the Republican Party:
Ethics Heroes: The Bushes (Jeb, George H.W. and George W.) Mitt Romney, House Speaker Paul Ryan, Republican U.S. Senators Lindsay Graham, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Jeff Flake of Arizona, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner; Conservative columnist Erick Erickson, Republican strategist and operative Mary Mat Weekly Standard founder and editor William Kristol.
There will be more. To reject the apparent nominee of your own party is a nearly unprecedented step for party leaders and ex-Presidents. I can’t find any vaguely similar example since Teddy Roosevelt split the GOP with his Progressive Party in 2012. Sasse has called for a third party alternative. Eventually, we will have a more definitive list, and some of these will fall into perdition. Continue reading
Paying George to speak is a little like paying Hillary to tell the truth…
Former President George W. Bush was paid a speakers fee of $100,000 to address a charity fundraiser for U.S. military veterans severely wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Texas-based Helping a Hero charity also confirmed that W. was also provided with a private jet to travel to Houston at a cost of $20,000.
Observations:
Time to revisit the classics, Glenn…
Newspaper “fact-checking” is a mostly unethical and misleading exercise in which media partisans use the format to call positions they differ with ideologically and politically “lies.” PolitiFact is well established as the worst and most biased of these features; Annenberg’s Factcheck.org is easily the best (but still shows its leftward bias), and somewhere in between is Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s “Factchecker.” Today’s installment of his periodic column shows that after many years at his job, he still doesn’t know what a lie is. Amazing.
This is not, or should not be, necessarily for a factchecker, as long as he sticks to checking facts, and not characterizing why the facts don’t jibe with a particular public figure’s public statements. PolitiFact’s specialty is making questionable interpretations of statistics and events, declaring them the revealed truth, and attacking anyone, usually a Republican, who has come to a different conclusion. To his credit, Kessler doesn’t do that very often. He is typically fair and objective in his research and presentation of facts. But the Post’s Factchecker uses the device of one to four little Pinocchio heads to indicate the seriousness of a factual misstatement, and as he should know, Pinocchio’s nose grew long when he lied. Even one Pinocchio indicates that Kessler believes he has proven that someone lied.
It seems a little late for Kessler to be mistaking opinions that he disagrees with, analyses of facts that reach different conclusions than he would, and obvious mistakes as lies. Kessler, who is should be in the business of checking facts but has chosen a gimmick that makes him conclude by accusing others of lying, is ethically obligated to know what a lie is: an intentional misstatement of fact that is designed and intended to deceive. He either doesn’t know that, which means he’s incompetent, or he does and misrepresents mistakes and opinions as lies, which means that he’s the liar. Whichever it is, this is ethically unacceptable for a “factchecker.” Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 