Joe Biden

President Trump Has Never Tweeted Anything Nearly As Unethical As This…

/ Jack Marshall / 76 Comments

Translation: “Elect me, or we’ll burn down your cities.”

No, Joe, we know your party and its followers have devolved into violent totalitarian thugs, who, as they have proved since 2016, are incapable of accepting the results of elections, or the responsibilities of democracy. we know if they lose, they will be violent.

I know you’re suffering from cognitive decline, and I’m genuinely sorry about that. It’s not your fault, but it is your fault that you are still running for President when you are physically incapable of doing the job. Maybe that’s why you tweeted such a cretinous, offensive message that demonstrates such ignorance of the American character. Nikita Khrushchev could have sent a message to Americans when cowards here were chanting, “Better Red Than Dead,”  “Does anyone believe that that there will be less death and destruction if America keeps opposing us?”

But he was smarter than that.

How tragic that you’re not.

Ethics Cool Down, 8/27/2020, From A Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Day…

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

(I told you there would be more)

1. Kudos to luckyesteeyoreman, the venerable EA commenter who exactly predicted what Joe Biden’s ventriloquists would have him say about the riots, aka “the angry genie the progressives will never get back in the bottle”: The violence is “Donald Trump’s America.”  Lucky bested me: I never thought even the Democrats could be that incompetent. By claiming that the riots are the President’s fault, he sends exactly the opposite message from the one he needs to send,which is that the riots are not being blamed on Trump, but on the Democrats. Biden’s argument, “he made me riot” is one that the campus Left has been justly mocked for, and nobody but cowering college administrators and indoctrinated students regard it as anything but risible.

2. Speaking of things the Democrats and media are having no luck blaming on Donald Trump, Issues and Insights published five charts that nicely debunk the “The pandemic in the US is worse than anywhere!” talking point.  These are the best:

Of course, nobody in their right mind or who isn’t a Times reporter or  works for CNN believes the figures from China, Iran, or Russia.

Then there is this. Continue reading →

Stop Making Me Defend Joe Biden! The Plagiarism Charge…

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

One of these things is not like the others…

I would say Joe Biden will never live down his 1987 disgrace, when he withdrew from the Democratic Party’s presidential race after it was revealed that he plagiarized a speech—indeed, a life account—from UK Labor Party Leader Neil Kinnock. I would say that, except there is so much Biden should never be able to live down that doesn’t matter now that he is running against Donald Trump, not the least of which is that he is placing the nation and the integrity of the Presidency at risk by continuing his candidacy despite evidence of serious cognitive decline that he must be aware of.

During the  2016 campaign, I frequently mentioned my  “Lawn Chair Test,” which is whether I would vote for a lawn chair rather than a particular candidate. Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton all flunked the Lawn Chair Test, and apparently the Trump Deranged are taking it literally, as it appears that in November they will be voting for the nearest thing to an actual lawn chair that has ever been on a Presidential ballot.

Nonetheless, the alleged plagiarism claims that have been trumpeted by some conservative news sources regarding Biden’s nomination acceptance speech are as unfair as they are silly.

Biden wrapped his  speech in rousing fashion—well, it would have been rousing  if Joe showed any energy at all—by saying: “For love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear. Light is more powerful than dark.”

The Canadians “pounced,”  claiming that Joe’s words were unethically similar to those from a speech byJack Layton, the leader of Canada’s left-wing New Democratic Party,  in an  open farewell letter to his fellow citizens prior to his death in 2011. Layton wrote, “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair.”

“A number of Canadians are struck by the similar parting words of Biden’s speech to the final words of Jack Layton’s farewell letter before his death,” CBC’s Washington correspondent Alexander Panetta tweeted.

Layton’s message, meanwhile, had itself employed somewhat similar language to that once used by former Canadian Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier,  who had said in 1916, “Let me tell you that for the solution of these problems you have a safe guide, an unfailing light if you remember that faith is better than doubt and love is better than hate.”

Knowing that Republicans and others would be searching for “gotcha!” examples of plagiarism by Biden given the Kinnock scandal, his campaign invested in a $4,200 anti-plagiarism software program last year. It didn’t pick up on the similarities between Layton’s language and Biden’s (assuming he was the author of his speech, which he almost certainly was not), because there was no plagiarism. First, it was a single sentence, and hardly a remarkable one in either instance. I’d be shocked if similar sentences haven’t turned up in many political speeches throughout history. Second, they just aren’t that much alike, though Layton’s was better. Anger isn’t the same as hate. “Light is more powerful than dark,” isn’t the equivalent of “Optimism is better than despair.” Sure, the construction is the same, but that is a standard rhetorical device: three parallel statements,  linked by cadence.

Oratory is a genre, and, like music, it is customary and traditional to borrow and alter phrases and sequences from the works of others, which in most cases weren’t completely original themselves. If Joe hadn’t already had a well-earned reputation as a plagiarist—as a law school student in 1965, Biden failed a class for citing published works without attribution—no one would have criticized him for this trivial sort-of match. The fact is that Joe Biden isn’t that bright and isn’t that articulate. He’s  been a plodding, over-achiever his whole life. He needs to borrow from those more clever and gifted than he, and most speakers consider that kind of borrowing a compliment.

Here’s how it works: certain apt and memorable lines evolve and get perfected through the ages, until finally someone nails it. Then that one is theirs, and nobody can imitate it again without everyone noticing. A prime example is President John F. Kennedy’s famous line, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” There are many recorded—and probably unrecorded— speeches that contain similar sentiments. Ted Sorensen, who wrote the speech with Kennedy, nailed it, perhaps aided by Jack, who had a headmaster who was fond of quoting an old Harvard dean who told graduating classes, “As has often been said, the youth who loves his Alma Mater will always ask, not “What can she do for me?” but “What can I do for her?”

Were Kennedy and his speechwriter plagiarizing? No.

Then there is Winston Churchill, who in 1940 famously told Parliament:

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills…We shall never surrender, and even if,which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of itwere subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”

In a similarly desperate situation  during the German offensive in the spring of 1918, French premier Georges Clemenceau rallied his people by saying,

“I shall fight before Paris, I shall fight behind Paris. The Germans may
take Paris but that will not stop me from carrying on the war. We shall
fight on the Loire, we shall fight on the Garonne, we shall fight even
in the Pyrenees. And should we be driven off the Pyrenees, we shall
continue the war from the sea. But as for asking for peace, never!”

Plagiarism? It’s a lot closer to plagiarism than Joe’s speech, but so what? Churchill wasn’t speaking for a grade, or for publication. Political oratory has a purpose, and accomplishing that purpose is paramount. He may have been inspired by Clemenceau, but Clemenceau might have taken his inspiration from Caesar, or Homer…it doesn’t matter. What mattered was inspiring a nation, not achieving 100% originality.

As for Joe’s little speech, it wasn’t within furlongs of Kennedy’s or Churchill’s, but accusing him of plagiarism this time is petty and unfair.

Ethics Quote Of The Week: Ann Althouse

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

“I saw in a tweet that [Biden] was forefronting the Charlottesville “fine people” hoax… despicable. They have chosen quite deliberately to commit to a lie that is intended to make black people feel hated and they are doing it for political gain… I blogged in April 2019, “If Biden does not come forward and retract [a video relying on the Charlottesville hoax] and apologize and commit himself to making amends, I consider him disqualified. He does not have the character or brain power to be President.” Now, more than a year later, Biden has done the opposite. He’s doubled down on the lie and he’s making it the centerpiece of his campaign!”

—-Retired law professor/blogger Ann Althouse this morning, reacting to “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Speech Transcript August 12: First Campaign Event as Running Mates.” 

Here’s the tweet:

Ann could be best described as an  old school  moderate Democrat, which in today’s environment means she is a conservative, a racist, and a traitor. She is shocked—shocked!—that the Democratic nominee for President would advance a false narrative based on Big Lie #3, arguably the foundational lie of the “resistance” that has been repeated by activists, pundits, reporters and Democratic leaders and elected officials for nearly four years. That Big Lie is “Trump Is A Racist/White Supremacist.”

The Charlottesville canard has become the go-to “proof” of the President’s racism by the Trump Deranged, either through ignorance (from believing the news media) or malice. To refresh your memory (and give you a quick reference to cut and paste into social media posts to shake on your “friends'” cyber-faces, here is the relevant section from the “Big Lies” compendium: Continue reading →

Rainy Day Ethics Warm-Up, 8/12/2020: More Ethics Thoughts On Kamala Harris [UPDATED!]

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I always thought Glenn Yarbrough was the B version of Gene Pitney, who was better. Did you know that Gene Pitney wrote “Hello, Mary Lou (Goodby Heart)” and “He’s a Rebel”? He’s a singer we don’t usually think of as a songwriter, but like the great Bobby Darin, he was a prolific and a successful one who is in the American Songwriters Hall of Fame. Unlike Darin, however, Pitney didn’t record his own songs, saying in one interview that as odd as it sounds, his best songs were not ideal for his own voice and style.

The melody of “Baby the Rain Must Fall” was the creation of Elmer Bernstein, the acclaimed composer of so many classic film scores, like “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape.”

And thus endeth the pop culture sermon for the day….

More on the scary-horrible Kamala Harris…

1. Well that didn’t take long! Already the narrative is starting that criticism of Kamala Harris is based on racism and sexism, and not her dreadful personality, sketchy past, and career baggage.  Wholly predictable, and designed to keep the public just getting to know Harris from really learning about her by stifling critics. Journalists, of course, can be counted on to stifle themselves when a Democrat has a problematical record.

2. More spin...Dumped “Meet the Press” host David Gregory actually went on the air this morning to say Harris was “the safe choice.” Biden had no safe choices once he was trapped into naming a check-box candidate.  What Gregory meant, I assume, was that she was the least risky in a slate of horrible options. That is true.

3. “How deep is the ocean? How high is the sky?“…I neglected, in last night’s post, to recall this example of Harris’ hypocrisy, from April 2019, when Harris was widely regarded as a frontrunner for the Presidential nomination:

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that she believes women who say they felt uncomfortable after receiving unwanted touching from former Vice President Joe Biden.

“I believe them and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it,” Harris said at a presidential campaign event in Nevada.

 

Then, after Harris’s run for the White House flopped and she began stalking the Vice-Presidency, Harris supported Biden and dismissed the accusations of Tara Reade, though she had savaged Brett Kavanaugh based on Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s far more dubious accusations. I can’t wait to hear how feminists explain that one.

I wonder: Who has the greater integrity vacuum, Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris?

Luckily for Harris, if you are “of color,” you can’t be a  hypocrite, or at least no white critic can point out you’re one. Those are the rules… Continue reading →

Observations On Biden’s Choice Of Kamala Harris As His Running Mate [UPDATED]

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

1. Ethics Alarms readers called it! Among those who were willing to choose the least bad of the three choices remaining to Biden, given his mandate to choose a black woman, Harris was the winner.

2. How objectively awful is Kamala Harris? This is the woman Joe Biden placed a heartbeat from the presidency, from the post here of December 3,  2019:

Let us stipulate: the failure of Kamala Harris to thrive in the race for the Democratic nomination for President was not because Democratic voters are racist or sexist.  It is because she was a lousy candidate from the beginning. Checking off boxes is never enough, thank heaven. She is a woman, “of color,” a lawyer and a Senator from a large and powerful state. To top it all off, Harris is relatively young, and attractive. Perfect!

Except it was easy to see that she was an empty suit with a penchant for saying stupid things, often things she couldn’t possibly believe and that contradicted her record as a prosecutor. She said that it was “outrageous” that the Trump administration wanted to deport illegal immigrants who had committed crimes. [Me: “It is not and cannot be “outrageous” to say that any illegal immigrant, criminal or not, qualifies for deportation. To maintain otherwise is to say that the United States cannot enforce its immigration laws, and not only that, it is “outrageous” to enforce the laws. Is that the position of the Democratic Party? “] She said that she supported legalizing pot because it brought people “joy.” You know, like heroin, rape, and child molesting. She said, when Joe Biden correctly pointed out that a President could not ban “assault weapons” by executive order, she responded, “Well, I mean, I would just say, hey, Joe, instead of saying, no, we can’t, let’s say yes, we can.”  Horrified when she saw the exchange,, law prof Ann Althouse wrote, “The transcript cannot convey the feeling and expression in Kamala Harris’s  [ response]. It is so awful, so lightweight and dismissive of constitutional law (and without any of the dignity of constitutional critique.”

There are plenty more catalogued here, and it is hardly exhaustive. Harris flopped because she proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was unqualified to be a Senator, much less a President. As if that wasn’t enough, she couldn’t manage her campaign, which had disintegrated into finger-pointing and defections. When Barack Obama was challenged in 2008 over his lack of leadership experience, he cited the success of his campaign. Slim indeed, but  Harris couldn’t even say that.

As the writing on the wall began to be undeniable, Harris stooped to race- and gender baiting, expressing doubts as to whether a “woman of color” could be elected President (in such a racist, sexist nation, she implied.) No, Senator it’s just that you can’t be elected.

Continue reading →

Unethical Tweet Of The Month (And I Vow To Flag This Lie Every Time A Politician, Journalist Or Facebook Friend Attempts It): Joe Biden

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Stipulated: The likelihood that Joe Biden really tweeted this is slim. Nonetheless, poor Joe is still accountable for his social media accounts and  the employees he  hires to represent him in cyberspace. This lie is his lie, and his lie is also six years old. Biden is stuck with the lie, because 1) he has no integrity and will say anything he thinks will get him elected and 2) because this lie still constitutes part of the foundation of Black Lives Matter, the organization most responsible for the riots disrupting cities across America along with the special bonus that anyone with the sense to reject their scam is immediately tarred as a racist, and maybe fired or forced to resign.

The use of the “Mike Brown was killed by a racist cop” lie is, at this point, smoking gun proof that an individual is  trying to aggravate and exploit racial distrust and hate to advance their own agenda. That makes them, to be blunt, scum.

During the depressing Democratic primary season, three Presidential hopefuls—Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, employed the lie, and I’m pretty certain every one of them knew it was false. The Democratic Party, which has cynically embraced Black Lives Matter, is, by extension, promoting the lie. Continue reading →

Did You Ever Want To Reach Right Through A Letters To The Editor Section And Slap A Letter Writer Silly?

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

When I see a letter to a newspaper published that is indefensible logically and ethically, I often wonder, “Why did the paper print this?” Was the reason that the editors thought the letter made good sense, in which case, “Oh-oh!” Was the reason that it spoke for many readers with similar delusions, and thus would inform other readers that this, however dim-witted, is a common attitude or perception? Or, most ominous of all, was the reason it was published that the editors know the letter is badly reasoned, but think it will persuade other readers to accept a view that advances the paper’s ideological and political agendas?

I believe editors of letters sections are obligated to rebut dumb or misleading statements, either with their own responses or with other letters. The news media should not make people more ignorant, more biased, more stupid, and more misinformed. That our current news media does this now as a matter of course, and often deliberately, is one of the prime reasons I view the label “enemy of the people,” as inflammatory as it is, as fair.

I was thinking about this as I read the readers’ letters to the New York Times about Elizabeth Drew’s recent op-ed arguing that Presidential debates should be eliminated. As I’ve mentioned here earlier, her position was disingenuous and laughable: What a coinkydink that progressive pundits are suddenly opposing debates when the Democratic Party’s candidate is obviously trying to keep the extent of his mental decline from voters! Naturally the Times, being the Times,  permitted just one letter to get to press that expressed that analysis; only two of the seven letters published referenced Joe Biden at all. Continue reading →

Now THIS Is Racism…But It’s Joe Biden, So Never Mind.

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments

I admit that I am still using the old, original, can’t-be-adjusted-to-fit-anyone-or anything-you-want-to-smear definition of “racism”: “the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another.”

That’s one reason that I know that the attacks on President Trump as a racist comprise a Big Lie.  No, criticizing a single Black individual, even nastily or unfairly, isn’t racism. Not favoring policies that confer advantages because of race isn’r racism. Even referring to third world countries with primarily black populations as “shit holes’—just to pick a hypothetical—isn’t racism. However, what Joe Biden said yesterday, during an interview with black and Latino journalists,

“Most people don’t know, unlike the African American community with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community, with incredibly different attitudes about different things.”

That’s racism, flat-out, no doubt about it, no spin possible. Not only that, it’s old school racism, like “them darkies just love their watermelon, and are happy pickin’ cotton in the fields!” In sexist terms, it is like saying that women are too emotional to hold leadership position. In a homophobia context, it is like saying that gay men are potential child molesters. The idea that blacks are monolithic and basically all alike was a Jim Crow staple, and like all racist tropes, is, or should be, nonsense on its face.

What Joe Biden said wasn’t a “gaffe.” His statement was clear and unequivocal; indeed it was one of the most coherent things he has uttered in public for a long time. It wasn’t a “gaffe,” except if you use the cynical Washington, D.C. definition of that word, which is “a politician saying in public what he really thinks.”  Back in 1988, when Ross Perot was scaring both parties with his third party run for the President, the NAACP tarred him as a racist because at one point in his address to the group he referred to them as “you people.” Imagine if he had said, “you people are all the same.” Yet that is exactly what Joe Biden said yesterday. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Week: Joe Biden.

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

“The way Trump…the way China will respond is when we gather the rest of the world that in fact [unintelligible] in in fr… in in in in open trade and making sure that we’re in a position that the world, uh, that that we deal with WHO the right way that in fact that’s when things begin to change, that when China’s behavior is going to change.”

—-Joe Biden yesterday, in an interview with NPR.

Why is this unethical? It’s unethical for anyone to run for any public office, especially President, when he or she is subject to outburst of Authentic Frontier Gibberish like that. To do so is irresponsible, unpatriotic, a breach of public duty, and dangerous.