President Obama

The White House’s Wonderland Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 28 Comments

This is a weird one.

"Alice in Wonderland" party at the White House? I don't remember any party!

“The Obamas,” one of those “behind the scenes at the White House” books that has become a routine feature of every administration since the Reagans, has the usual tales about First Couples bickering and First Lady power trips. Author and  New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor has caused something of an uproar with her account of the first Halloween party the first couple hosted at the White House, in 2009. She writes that it was so lavish and “over the top” that the administration kept the event secret out of fear of a public backlash. After all, this was a time when the Tea Party was in full swing, the economy was at low tide, and there was the ten-percent unemployment rate, bank bailouts and Obama’s health-care plan battles. Not exactly a smart time for a Marie Antoinette-style costume blow-out. Continue reading →

A Frightening Figure, Setting Off Ethics Alarms

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

We don't even know how to play Russian Roulette responsibly.

On Friday, the day before Christmas Eve when much of America was thinking about sugar plums,  lay-away plans, and protesting Christmas pageants, the Federal Accounting Office released its analysis of  the net present value of the nation’s Social Security and Medicare obligations, “net present value” being  the total funds that would have to be set aside today to pay the costs of these programs in the future. Seldom do figures so clearly indict the unethical practices and statements of so many.

In fiscal 2011, the cost of the catching up on the required funding of Medicare and Social Security rose from $30.9 trillion to $33.8 trillion. That $2.9 trillion increase should be regarded as adding to the $1.3 trillion cash deficit for fiscal 2011, making a $4.2 trillion deficit—and this coming in a year in which the rising national debt was supposedly recognized, at last, as a threat to America’s stability, prosperity, and welfare. The costs of Social Security and Medicare are rising at a frightening rate, nearly doubling in the last decade, with little or nothing being done to address the problem. And there is good reason to believe that the Medicare estimates are based on unrealistic assumptions. The GAO report also includes an alternate, less rosy scenario (or perhaps “more putrid” is a better phrase) in which the projected Social Security-Medicare debt is more than $46 trillion. How serious is that? Well, the combined value of the equity in U.S. homes and the value of all publicly-traded companies is less than 20 trillion dollars.

What do these figures tell us about the ethics of the various players on the national scene? Continue reading →

Occupy Wall Street: “This Is What We Want!” Finally! Oh…THAT.

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

Time to stop wasting our time.

After more than a month of demonstrations that have cost millions, deflected local governments from vital matters, inconvenienced and clogged cities across the country, invigorated anarchists, communists, fascists, free-loaders and loonies, suckered desperate Democrats into declaring common cause with a mob, and exposed the worst of Left-wing punditry as the embarrassing demagoguery society that it is…and after well-intentioned demonstrators have been robbed, arrested, and injured…the Occupy” movement finally is finally ready to declare what it wants.

It’s about time. Large-scale demonstrations to express “frustration” are the advocacy equivalent of humming, or maybe belching: speak clearly, or get off the street.  On October 9, Ethics Alarms described the Occupy Wall Street demonstration, in the context of pointing out the friendly mainstream media embrace of a left-ish, anti-capitalist mob in contrast to its open contempt for the peaceful, focused and conservative Tea Party, as “incoherently chanting anarchists, radicals and unemployed youths…advocating nothing constructive whatsoever.” Many of the site’s distinguished readers objected to that characterization, with one, blogger Jeff Field,  promising to produce an articulation of what the protest really wants to accomplish. Today he fulfilled that promise by sending me a statement by an “Occupy” supporting group, with his introduction, “This is what we want.” I am genuinely grateful to Jeff…especially since it shows that I was correct in my assessment, however harsh. Continue reading →

The Rick Perry-Birther Flap: An Addendum

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

I’ll make this uncharacteristically brief.

I wrote, and believe, that media reports that Rick Perry had expressed Birther sentiments were unfair and misrepresented his words. That was correct. In interviews since that post was composed, Perry has suggested that it is fun to tease the President about the dispute over his place of birth and citizenship, and “keep it alive.”

No, it isn’t. It is unfair, disrespectful and wrong. There is no teasing that is appropriate when the subtext is a challenge to a President’s legitimacy. Perry needs to cut it out, though it is too late in one respect: his words indelibly mark him as a jerk.

Let me also say that I am not especially sympathetic to Democratic indignation regarding teasing over a president’s legitimacy. This is exactly what the entire party did for every second of President Bush’s tenure, suggesting that the 2000 election was “stolen,’ thus rendering his tenure illegitimate. This exploited the vast majority of the public’s ignorance about the Electoral College, and also involved impugning the integrity of the U.S. Supreme Court, doing far more damage to the nation than the idiot Birthers on their best day.

That does not excuse Perry, of course. Every additional word he says to keep the Birther issue in the public eye is another reason—and there are already plenty—to keep him in Texas.

Ethics Quiz: Should the State Department Be Buying and Distributing the President’s Books?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

It's a State Department...and a nifty literary agent too!

It’s a little early for another Ethics Quiz, but this one is tailor-made.

The Washington Times reported today that The State Department has bought more than $70,000 worth of  books authored by President Obama. Hillary’s folks have been sending out copies as Christmas gifts, and stocking  libraries around the world with “Dreams from My Father.”  For example, the  U.S. Embassy in Egypt spent $28,636 in August 2009 for copies of the best-selling 1995 memoir, six weeks after it had placed another order for the same book for more than $9,000. At the same time, the U.S. Embassy in South Korea spent more than  $6,000 for its copies of “Dreams from My Father.” All of this comes from federal purchasing records.

The Times points out that the previous  State Departments resisted the impulse to buy books by former Presidents George W. Bush or Bill Clinton.

Are you ready for your Ethics Quiz? It’s a multiple choice:

For the State Department to spend $70,000 on its boss’s book is…. Continue reading →

The Media’s Birther Smear On Rick Perry

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

The race for the Republican nomination for president has a long way to go, but the winner of the title of Republican Contender Most Unfairly Abused By The Media has probably been wrapped up. It’s Texas Governor Rick Perry, in a romp.

I’m not sure why, exactly. I suppose the combination of a southern, gun-carrying, capital punishment-supporting, openly religious, conservative Republican just has too many characteristics that the typically Democratic, liberal atheist, gun-hating journalists who overwhelmingly populate the newsrooms instinctively want to destroy. They still have an obligation to do it fairly and honestly, however. Where Perry is concerned, fair and honest seem to be forgotten.

Last week I heard David Letterman say that Perry “is starting to look like someone who crawled out from under a painted rock.” This was a reference to the Washington Post’s unconscionable front page “expose” about a hunting lodge where Perry either did or did not hunt before the name “Niggerhead” had been painted over on a rock that bore the longtime name of the area. Most fair commentators have pronounced that story weak and badly conceived, but as the Post no doubt knew it would, the story has attached itself to Perry, creating fodder for cheap-shot artists like Letterman and Bill Maher, and scarring his reputation.

The enmity toward Perry has not abated. Checking the web over the weekend, I found links to stories proclaiming that Perry had come out as a “Birther,” challenging the validity of President Obama’s citizenship. Continue reading →

Occupy Wall Street: Unethical Demonstration, Unethical Supporters

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

If this is the level of your comprehension, I really don’t care what you think.

“Ethics Bob” Stone recently posted about the ethics of mass demonstrations like “Occupy Wall Street,” noting that long-term, open-ended demonstrations begin crossing ethical lines once they accomplish the goal of sending a message and hang around anyway, creating fertile ground for violence, and, though Bob doesn’t mention this, inconveniencing the public, wasting scarce municipal funds, and tempting pundits to make fools out of themselves.

Even with this, Bob is giving the Occupiers more credit than they deserve. A group that imposes its presence on the public, law enforcement, and local governments is entitled to express a minority and even a crackpot viewpoint. There is an ethical obligation, however, not to abuse the right of assembly and the precious time of everyone else by creating a big disturbance that means nothing, conveying a message that is irresponsible because it is based on ignorance.

New York Magazine quizzed the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators, and discovered that: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Actor Morgan Freeman

/ Jack Marshall / 24 Comments

Ah, God...you disappoint me.

As long as shameless, irresponsible race-baiters keep attributing opposition to President Obama’s presidency to bigotry, I’ll keep naming them Ethics Dunces.

The latest in this disgraceful parade is distinguished African-American actor Morgan Freeman, who told CNN’s Piers Morgan in an interview that the Tea Party and the Republican Party antipathy to the President is motivated by racism, saying…

“Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What’s, what does that, what underlines that? ‘Screw the country. We’re going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here’…It is a racist thing…it just shows the weak, dark, underside of America. We’re supposed to be better than that. We really are. That’s, that’s why all those people were in tears when Obama was elected president. “Ah, look at what we are. Look at how, this is America.’ You know? And then it just sort of started turning because these people surfaced like stirring up muddy water.” Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: ABC News White House Correspondent Jake Tapper

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Neat trick by Jay Carney: Speaking for the President, AND doing an uncanny impression of a weasel!

It shows the degree to which we now take bias and favoritism by the news media for granted that a reporter doing what once was regarded as his duty now appears heroic.  Sadly, that is where we are.

That is also why Jake Tapper warrants an Ethics Hero designation for pressing White House press secretary Jay Carney on the obvious disconnect between President Obama’s lecture on civility in January in the wake of the Giffords shooting, and his happy acceptance of the call by  Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. to “take these sons of bitches out” at a rally over the weekend. The exchange: 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 →