Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
June 9, 2011
I rely a lot on PolitiFact.com, a blog of the St. Petersburg Times, to check the truthfulness of public figures. Today they reviewed all their ratings of Anthony Weiner, It’s a sad record, even before the plethora of lies he spewed over the past week. It’s much worse than I remembered. He was only rated four times, and the highest rating he ever got was “half true.”
I had admired him for his intensity, especially for his raging plea for medical care for the 9/11 first responders, who had been abandoned by Republicans in the House. He won that battle, but I should have been more critical of him. I shoulda checked PolitiFact.com
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Tags:Anthony Weiner, ethics, half-truths, lies, medical care for 9/11 first responders, PolitiFact.com, St. Petersburg Times, truthfulness
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment »
June 8, 2011
As the Anthony Weiner affair descends from “inappropriate” (his word) messages to phone sex, X-rated photos, and likely criminal conspiracy, Republican leaders are not passing up their chance to show off their hypocrisy and double standard. House Majority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus are both calling for Weiner to resign his House seat.
Funny, both said they saw no reason for David Vitter (R-LA) to resign his Senate seat after he admitted to hiring a prostitute (a crime under Louisiana law) and repeatedly lying about it. Or for John Ensign (R-NV) to resign his Senate seat after he had an affair, with a subordinate, paid off her husband to keep it quiet, hired her son on his staff, and lied about everything. Or for Mark Sanford (R-SC) to resign the governorship after he flew off to visit his mistress in Argentina and lied repeatedly about it. All three had run for office under the family values banner.
Two cheers for former RNC chair Michael Steele, who told Rachel Maddow today, “I heard what the chairman said today and I thought it was a little bit not right. A pox on both their houses because they violated the public trust.”
Steele would have gotten a full three cheers had he not defended Vitter, Sanford, and Ensign when their crimes and sins emerged during his RNC chairmanship.
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Tags:Anthony Weiner . inappropriate messages, criminal conspiracy, David Vitter, double standards, Eric Cantor, ethics, hypocrisy, John Ensign, Mark Sanford, Michael Steele, phone sex, prostitute, Rachel Maddow, Reince Priebus
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment »
June 6, 2011
At a circus of a press conference, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) admitted tweeting a photo of his brief-covered crotch to a 21-year old college student, then panicking and lying to cover it up. What ethics rule did Weiner break?
The Golden Rule, for one. He hurt a lot of people, starting with his wife, his loyal Congressional staff, the people who believed in him, and apparently, even Andrew Breitbart, the scurrilous right wing defamer and doctorer of videos.
The nearly universal rule against lying, for another. If we lie to each other society crumbles.
The rule that says do what’s expected of you. The voters who sent Weiner to Congress expected –reasonably—different of him.
In addition to the ethics violations Weiner violated the First Law of Washington Scandal: the cover-up is worse than the crime. In this respect he is forcing his admirers (including me, as of last week) to question his sanity: What in the world was he thinking when he made up those pathetically lame, unbelievable lies. Nobody, no matter their politics, not even Chris Mathews, believed he was telling the truth.
To Weiner’s credit, and there’s not much in this to his credit, he set the standard for apologizing. No “I’m sorry if you thought…” or “I was under the influence of a new allergy prescription,” or (more…)
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Tags:Andrew Breitbart, Anthony Weiner, Apologies, Chris Matthews, cover-up, crotch photo, ethics, Golden Rule, House Ethics Committee, lying, Nancy Pelosi, tweeting
Posted in Apologies, Ethics-general, Government, Media, Politics | Leave a Comment »
June 4, 2011
Americans—especially older Americans—like Israel because it’s like America: democracy, constitutional principles, independent, industrious, and tough people. But the trend on American campuses is to not like Israel so much because of the way they treat the Palestinians (and Syrians) in the territories they conquered in 1967. As Thomas Friedman told Fareed Zakaria last Sunday,
“Netanyahu…can get standing ovations in the U.S. Congress anytime [he wants], seven days a week, 24/7. How many standing ovations do you think he could get at the student government at the University of Missouri? At Stanford? At Harvard? At the University of Virginia? At the University of Texas? If you went to those student governments, they’re the future. They’re the future of voters. They’re the future people who will maintain the strategic relationship with Israel. And there, I can tell you, as anyone who goes to college campuses knows, that people don’t get Israel, what Israel is doing right now. They — some are alienated.”
The students are seeing the right-wing religious parties gaining more of a stranglehold over Israeli government policies, and seeing treatment of the conquered peoples getting worse. Fans of Israel have long defended her by saying (more…)
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Tags:Al Jazeera, conquered territories, ethics, Fareed Zakaria, Israel, Israeli Arabs, Israeli rabbis, Lod Municipality, Netanyahu, racist state. Palestinians, religious parties, segregated schools, standing ovations, student governments, Syrians, Thomas Friedman, U.S. Congress
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, International, Politics, Religion, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
May 23, 2011
Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) announced that he’d tell voters the “hard truths” as he campaigns for the Republican Presidential nomination. Ho-hum. We’ve heard that one before.
But listen up. Pawlenty opened his campaign today in Iowa by telling Iowans that he opposes federal subsidies for corn-based ethanol. In Iowa for gosh sakes! Next thing you know he’ll tell Floridians that he favors raising the retirement age for Social Security. Oh, but his campaign says that’s exactly what he’ll do next.
The great shame of democratic (and Democratic…and Republican) politics is politicians telling voters what they think the voters want to hear instead of what the politician really thinks. Pawlenty says he’ll be a different kind of candidate, and his first day is a sign that he means it.
Edmund Burke told his constituents 237 years ago that a representative owes them “his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving [them], if he sacrifices it to [their] opinion.” Following Burke’s example is one of the two highest ethical duties* of an elected official.
Pawlenty gets the mythical Edmund Burke Award for his ethanol position. Here’s hoping that politicians of both parties rush to follow his example.
*The other is the duty to heed Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who wrote, ‘The temper of and integrity with which the political fight is waged is more important for the health of our society than the outcome of any issue or campaign.”
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Tags:corn-based ethanol, Edmund Burke, Edmund Burle Award, ethanol subsidies, ethical duties, ethics, hard truths, Iowa politics, Pawlenty, Reinhold Niebuhr, Republican Presidential nomination, Social Security retirement age, third rail
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment »
May 20, 2011
Has the President “thrown Israel under the bus,” as Mitt Romney said yesterday? Has he “once again betrayed our friend and ally, Israel,” as Michele Bachmann raged? Made a “mistaken and very dangerous demand,” as Tim Pawlenty accused? Or has he “given the Palestinians a huge break,” per Newt Gingrich?
Here’s what the President said:
“I believe that any peace agreement between them will require mutually agreed adjustments to the armistice lines of 1949 to reflect current realities and to ensure that the Palestinian state is viable and contiguous.”
Oops. That wasn’t this President, it was President George W. Bush, speaking in Jerusalem on January 11, 2008.
Here’s what President Obama said yesterday:
“We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.”
Get the difference? No? That’s because there isn’t any. The 1949 and 1967 lines are the same. The only difference is that Republican politicians will scream in opposition to anything that President Obama says, even if George W. Bush said the same thing without any complaint.
Politics doesn’t stop at the water’s edge any more.
_________
Thanks to Michael Smerconish and Hardball for the quotes used here.
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Tags:1949 lines, 1967 lines, ethics, George W Bush, Israel borders, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, mutually agreed swaps, Obama, Palestinian state, Palestinians . Newt Gingrich, peace agreement, Republican hypocrisy, secure borders, Tim Pawlenty, water's edge
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, International, Politics | Leave a Comment »
May 20, 2011
Here is a fascinating piece from the The New York Times Sunday Magazine, “Obama’s Young Mother Abroad.” It’s adapted from Times reporter Janny Scott’s new book, “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother.”
His mother and his upbringing are extraordinarily unusual. Good read.
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Tags:A Singular Woman, Ann Dunham, Indonesia, Lolo Soetoro, Obama, Obama’s Young Mother Abroad. Janny Scott
Posted in International, Politics, Religion | Leave a Comment »
May 3, 2011
The most Muslim city in the US, Dearborn, Michigan, celebrated the killing of Bin Laden as exuberantly as anyplace, according to this article from the Detroit News.
Will the hate mongers of the right apologize? Not very likely.
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Tags:Bin Laden, Dearborn, Gingrich, Islamophobia, Muslims
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Religion, Tolerance | 4 Comments »
April 8, 2011
In the run-up to tonight’s budget agreement that will keep the federal government from shutting down, the last remaining point of contention was about federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Republican Whip, opposed the funding because, he said, Planned Parenthood’s main business is abortions:
“Everybody goes to clinics, to hospitals, to doctors, and so on. Some people go to Planned Parenthood. But you don’t have to go to Planned Parenthood to get your cholesterol or your blood pressure checked. If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that’s well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.”
When a PP spokesperson responded that only three per cent of its services are abortions, Sen. Kyl’s office backtracked…sort of. Here’s the entire statement:
“His remark was not intended to be a factual statement, but rather to illustrate that Planned Parenthood, a organization that receives millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, does subsidize abortions.”
We can’t say that Sen. Kyl lied, because a lie is a deliberately false statement made with intent to deceive. Sen. Kyl only meant to “illustrate.” So whether or not he’s a liar, best not to assume anything he says is true.
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Tags:abortions, budget agreement, ethics, government shut down, Jon Kyl, Planned Parenthood
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 3 Comments »
April 7, 2011
The story of the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” has spread halfway around the world to Turkey and to Hurriyet, the Turkish daily I scan (the English edition) on my iPhone every day. Today’s edition has an article by David Dyssegaard Kallick about lessons from the mosque. It’s not so much about the mosque as it is about the endless rhythmic flow of immigrants to New York.
Germans, Irish, Italians, Chinese and Jews, they were all considered “other” at first, despised and feared, but eventually each group became integrated into the New York scene, “not by shedding their culture, but by making a place for it in America.”
Kallick says he’s seen this movie before and it always has a happy ending. He explains why he’s certain that Muslims will find their rightful place in New York—shaping the city and being shaped by it. It’ll be another building block in America’s exceptionalism.
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Tags:American exceptionalism., Chinese and Jews, David Dyssegaard Kallick, ethics, Germans, Ground Zero mosque, Hurriyet, immigrants, Irish, Italians, Muslims, New York, other, Turkey
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Politics, Religion, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
I rely a lot on PolitiFact.com, a blog of the St. Petersburg Times, to check the truthfulness of public figures. Today they reviewed all their ratings of Anthony Weiner, It’s a sad record, even before the plethora of lies he spewed over the past week. It’s much worse than I remembered. He was only rated four times, and the highest rating he ever got was “half true.”
Ethics Bob 