partisanship

Clinton Worship Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

_Smoking_Gun

Every now and then, when they aren’t indignantly denying it, mainstream media journalists let their guard down and hand the public smoking gun evidence of their unprofessional, unethical, partisan Democratic Party bias. There’s not much risk anyway: after all, the only ones likely to call them on it are card-carrying members of the conservative media, and they are biased, don’t you know. The hosannas and halleluiahs all over cable news and the web celebrating Chelsea Clinton’s pregnancy, however, is pretty hard to spin. This is Clinton worship from the news media, and nothing less, part of the embarrassing effort by uncritical, star-struck liberal reporters and pundits, particularly feminine ones, to ram Hillary Clinton down America’s throat in 2016. There is no excuse or justification for it. None.as. There’s not much risk anyway: after all, the only ones likely to call them on it are card-carrying members of the conservative media, and they are biased, don’t you know.

Do you recall if Amy Carter had any children? How about the two Johnson girls? Does Caroline Kennedy have offspring? The Nixon girls? When Jenna Bush was pregnant, do you recall it being a headline? That’s because the pregnancies, if there were any, of these women were not newsworthy, beyond a “Lifestyle” section line in a gossip or “People and Places” newspaper column. Chelsea Clinton’s sole significance is the identify of  her parents, and nothing more. She has no independent significance to American life, welfare or history, and whether she is fecund or barren as a sack of flour makes no difference to the state of the union whatsoever. Her pregnancy is less interesting, objectively speaking, than the unfortunate daughter of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, as at least one  of her parents  is a genuine artist and the mother’s family’s inexplicable notoriety is a harbinger of the end of civilization as we know it. Chelsea? She’s a nice young woman, apparently. I met her once. She’s done nothing to justify an entry in Who’s Who, much less a headline. Yet yesterday, one would have thought that she was going to be mother of the presumptive King of the Colonies. Candy Crowley cheered! MSNBC was in rhapsody! CNN’s Headline News made it THE headline of the day!

How’s that Malaysian airplane doing? Continue reading →

“Can The Democrats Find The Right Message On Obamacare?” You Mean Other Than, “We Lied To You And Gave You A Law That Doesn’t Work Right But You Should Still Trust Us To Fix It”?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments
One more time....

One more time….

“Can Democrats find the right message on Obamacare?” asks the Washington Post’s “Wonkbook,” as it reviews various strategic options for threatened Democrats after the party’s “fix Obamacare” candidate lost a winnable Congressional race in Florida. The question, objectively interpreted, really means “Can Democrats fool voters into trusting them one more time?” That’s a good question, and the answer is far from certain. The use of the word “right,” however, is cynical.  The Post means “effective.” The right message, as in the ethical and honest one, would have to be based on these undeniable and unpleasant facts: Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: The Detroit News

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

“While it may be politically expedient, rewriting a law passed by Congress simply to avoid ballot box consequences is an outrageous abuse of executive power…No law should be reshaped for the sole purpose of benefiting a single political party.”

—-The Detroit News, condemning the cynical and nakedly political decision by the Obama administration to postpone the consequences of the Affordable Care Act until after the 2014 mid-terms, to protect vulnerable Democrats from voter anger.
train-wreckSo many of Ethics Alarms’ reflexive Obama administration apologists have fled lately that I wonder if anyone will have the fortitude to take to the parapets and defend the latest turn of the Obamacare Ethics Train Wreck. Highlights from the clear-eyed Detroit News editorial: Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Week: Glenn Greenwald

/ Jack Marshall / 55 Comments

“Every journalist has an agenda. We’re on MSNBC now where close to 24 hours a day the agenda of President Obama and the Democratic Party are promoted, defended, glorified. The agenda of the Republican Party is undermined. That doesn’t mean that the people who appear on MSNBC aren’t journalists. They are.”

—-Libertarian blogger, pundit and activist Glenn Greenwald, defending himself in an MSNBC interview against allegations that he has become a “spokesman” for fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
Journalism!

Journalism!

Remember, this is an ethics quote, not necessarily one that expresses an ethical point of view. With that caveat, I find it fascinating in many respects:
  • Greenwald is technically correct: journalists who use  their position to distort the news, express their biases and serve as advocates rather than objective critics, as most of the journalists do on MSNBC (and the way many too many journalists do elsewhere) are still journalists. They are unethical and unprofessional journalists. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “The Right Thing In Spite Of Themselves: CNN And NBC Abandon Their Hillary Projects”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Frequent commenter and left-leaning warrior Ampersand delivers a typically provocative and well-stated comment touching on many matters. Here is his

I'm sure it's justcoincidence that no similarly misleading and undignified photo of President Obama found its way into the newsmedia during the 2012 campaign. Just luck of the draw. Could have just as easily happened to Democrat or Republican...

I’m sure it’s just coincidence that no similarly misleading and undignified photo of President Obama found its way into the newsmedia during the 2012 campaign. Just luck of the draw. Could have just as easily happened to Democrat or Republican…

Comment of the Day, on the post “The Right Thing In Spite Of Themselves: CNN And NBC Abandon Their Hillary Projects,” and yes, I’ll have some comment of my own afterwards:

“Especially in primary debates, I’d like to see more partisanship. Why shouldn’t candidates in the GOP primaries face questions from solidly right-wing partisans? Why shouldn’t the Democrats have to face questions from solidly left-wing partisans? There are a couple of reasons I’d like to see this.

“One, primary voters are typically more partisan than average voters. Their views should be represented. Rush is more likely to ask questions that genuinely reflect the concerns of tea party voters than some empty suit from CNN is. Ditto for Melissa Harris Perry (say) and progressives.

“Two, I’m sick of right-wingers whining about media bias every time their candidates prove to be idiots. It is NOT biased or ‘gotcha’ to ask what magazines a candidate reads; and if a candidate can’t think fast enough on her feet to answer that question, it’s NOT the media’s fault. I’d really like to see your people being asked questions only by people with impeccable right-wing credentials, so that when some of your candidates inevitably give bad answers, you’ll be forced to actually accept some actual responsibility, rather than whining and blaming everything on the “biased’ media. Continue reading →

Case Study In How Bias Rots Integrity: Washington Post Columnist Harold Meyerson

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments
You see, Harold, this is your brain on bias. Yes, I know it looks yummy...

You see, Harold, this is your integrity on bias. Yes, I know it looks yummy…

Back in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, I exchanged some e-mails with Harold Meyerson, the left-est of the Post’s op-ed liberals. He had been condemning the Bush administration’s decision to go to war against Iraq—we were technically still at war with Iraq, since no peace terms had ever been agreed upon from the previous war, and Saddam was blatantly violating the terms of a cease-fire, but never mind—saying, among other things, that this was the first time in American history that the nation had embarked on a “war of choice” rather than necessity. This was a popular, and ignorant, “talking point” used by the anti-war critics at the time, and I was thoroughly sick of it being shouted in CNN debates without any objective participant protesting that it was a lie. I pointed out to the columnist that this was historical fantasy clothed as fact, and that he owed his readers better.

Most U.S. wars have been “wars of choice,” I wrote, and presumably Meyerson knew this. Arguably only the War of 1812, World War II and Afghanistan didn’t fit that description. The Revolution wasn’t a “war of choice”? Of course it was….most of the country would have been happy to stay subjects of the Crown. The Mexican War was not merely a “war of choice” but a war of “let’s trump up a reason to take away all this land belonging to Mexico” war.  Lincoln certainly didn’t have to oppose the secession of the Southern states and start the Civil War; indeed, the best Constitutional analysis is that he was acting beyond his authority to do so.The Spanish-American War? World War 1? Korea? Vietnam? Granada? Desert Storm? What country was Meyerson talking about?

To my surprise, Meyerson replied, politely and, I thought, a bit sheepishly. Yes, he said, of course you are right, but this war is more of a war of choice than those were. Translation: “I oppose this war, and the party of this President, so I’ll say whatever is necessary to get people to agree with me, and I’ll convince myself in the process.” I’ve never taken a Meyerson column seriously since. His reasoning process, like so many on the ends of either side of the political spectrum, is to frame reality in the way that most comfortably supports his ideological objective, and then to allow that warped reality to become part of his own world view. I think this kind of thought process by confirmation bias should disqualify any infected media pundits from commentary, as much as habitual dishonesty, dementia or insanity.

Today, Meyerson once again shows how his biases rot his reasoning and integrity. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas)

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments
That's Rep. Stockman on the right, naturally...

That’s Rep. Stockman on the right, naturally…

I told you the rodeo clown mess was an Ethics Train Wreck!

Heck, it seems like everything is an Ethics Train Wreck or getting close to one these days…the NSA, Egypt, San Diego, the New York Yankees, life…

I need a vacation.

Now Texas Republican rep Steve Stockman has come aboard by making the obnoxious, simple-minded and inherently offensive gesture of inviting the unfairly banned clown to perform his classy act at a Texas rodeo. Undignified, unprofessional, cheap, nasty, and stupid…I’m sure I left out some equally accurate descriptors. This is like George Zimmerman in miniature. Is it really so hard to understand that protesting unfair treatment of someone need not, and in some cases should not, be accompanied by affirmative endorsement…and that’s what the invitation by Stockman is. Is he really so dense that he doesn’t realize that? Or is he really such a hyper-partisan, unstatesmanlike boor that he thinks it’s responsible and appropriate for a member of Congress to express his approval of an entertainer who called the President of the U.S. a clown and invited a crowd to cheer at his metaphorical abuse by a bull, some of whom were undoubtedly motivated by bigotry?

I really don’t care. Stockman’s stunt is ethically objectionable on a grand scale, and either he, the House, Republicans, or preferably all three owe President Obama an apology. One would think a Congressman would understand that there are different standards for the high elected officials responsible for our laws and rodeo clowns. But toward the bottom of the ethical and intellectual barrel we call the Republican Party (God, I certainly hope it’s toward the bottom!), this is apparently untrue.

Rep. Stockman is more clown than statesman.

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Facts: Washington Post

Graphic: Google+

Unethical Quote of the Week: David Drumm

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“Gosnell is on trial for 7 counts of first-degree murder regarding the deaths of seven babies, and one count of third-degree murder for the death of a female patient. Many conservatives pundits think there should be greater media coverage. Be careful what you wish for.”

–—David Drumm, guest blogger on Jonathan Turley’s “Res Ipsa Loquitur,” arguing that scrutiny of the facts behind the Gosnell late-term abortion murder trial will show that pro-life protestors at Planned Parenthood clinics forced some women to enter Dr. Gosnell’s “house of horrors,” so conservatives should be eager to suppress the ugly story, just as the main stream media has done to avoid sparking an emotional national debate over the realities of abortion.

I'll put up a more flattering photo, Professor Turley, when you stop letting unethical people write on your blog.

I’ll put up a more flattering photo, Professor Turley, when you stop letting unethical people write on your blog.

A statement like Drumm’s above is signature significance. I don’t need to read another word to know that this is a commentator driven by politics and tactics rather than principle. Why is someone like this guest blogging on Jonathan Turley’s website? Turley is a legal scholar, an ethics expert, and everything Drumm is clearly not. He does not take knee-jerk ideological positions; his commentary is not partisan, and he is a civil libertarian. Civil libertarians do not endorse media manipulation of the news in the pursuit of partisan agendas, which is exactly what Drumm does here. Continue reading →

Why Is Criticism Of The Obama Family Vacations Considered Partisan?

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments
Or perhaps "Lifestyles of the Tone Deaf and Hypocritical" is more descriptive

Or perhaps “Lifestyles of the Tone Deaf and Hypocritical” is more descriptive

I understand a lot of the partisan divide in perception and coverage of President Obama. I don’t understand this.

The President’s persistent practice of sending his family members off on lavish vacations on the taxpayers’ largesse is unequivocally tone-deaf, hypocritical, and wrong. It’s wrong. There’s no defending it. His children’s current trip to the Bahamas and a ski resort, thanks to the necessary Secret Service detail necessary to protect them, is going to cost over $100,000….the last Spring Break vacation for them did. Wrong. Unethical. Obviously unethical.

Why are partisans—and those who aren’t supposed to be partisans, but really are, like most of the press—defending it? They can’t, mind you, but they try anyway. Why?

I know how. They do it by attacking the critics. The Atlantic, for example, in a blog post by Phillip Bump, sneeringly ridiculed the factual reporting by Matthew Boyle on the Obama kids’ expensive vacations by noting 1) the reporter works for Breitbart, and Breitbart is scum 2) that the outrage ginned up by that site over Obamaphones was phony, and 3) reporters, by news media accord, aren’t supposed to report on where First Kids take vacations, citing all the other Presidential spawn that avoided media attention. Continue reading →

The Hagel Nomination: Integrity Test In The U.S. Senate

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Chuck HagelI was able to watch the Senate’s questioning of Secretary of Defense designate Chuck Hagel on C-Span on and off, but clearly “on” enough to recognize a disaster unfolding. Whatever one might be tempted to say about Hillary Clinton’s performance during a day of bobbing and weaving about Benghazi under sometimes hostile questioning before both House and Senate committees, no one can question Clinton’s intelligence, knowledge and preparation. In contrast, no one who watched Hagel can honestly feel confident about his possession any of those qualities. He was uniformly awful, to the point of embarrassment. I found myself feeling sorry for him. He was unprepared. He was vague…he was contradictory; he did not seem to have a grasp on much of anything the job entailed. Several times, Democratic Senators rescued him by correcting his wording or reminding him of what he should have said. In short, he appeared incompetent.

Immediately, various news organizations and reporters told us that it didn’t matter, that Hagel “had the votes.”  If this is true, then the confirmation hearings are a sham, and our elected officials no longer care about trivial matters like the fate of the nation and national defense, but only political maneuvering and point-scoring. Why doesn’t it matter? If a highly touted applicant for an important corporate job botches the job interview, he doesn’t get the job. Are major management jobs in the U.S. Government so much less challenging and important that a lesser standard should adhere? Continue reading →