November 5, 2010
President Obama leaves Friday for a ten-day trip to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. His trip will cost $200 million a day, or $2 billion for the trip, on which. he will be escorted by 34 warships, twelve percent of the United States Navy. All this according to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
Except it’s as false as Obama’s Kenyan birth, his Muslim faith, his secret importing of “small quantities of Muslims,” and the death panels in his health care act. The story was reported in an Indian newspaper, quoting an anonymous provincial official.
The White House response was that the “numbers are wildly inflated.” The Pentagon dismissed the report as “absolutely absurd” and “just comical.” And the non-partisan factcheck.org summarized its findings this way:
“This story has spread rapidly among the President’s critics, but there is simply no evidence to support it. And common sense should lead anyone to doubt it. For example, the entire U.S. war effort in Afghanistan currently costs less than that — about $5.7 billion per month, according to the Congressional Research Service, or roughly $190 million per day. How could a peaceful state visit cost more than a war?” Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Afghanistan war cost, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, death panels, ethics, factcheck.org, Fair and balanced, Fox News, Glenn Beck, health care act, India, Kenyan birth, lies, Michael Savage, Muslim faith, Newsweek, Obama Asian trip, Pentagon, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, talk radio, warships
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Media | 3 Comments »
November 1, 2010
Hooray for Congressman Peter King (R-NY) for his praise of the Obama administration’s handling of the attempted bombings of FedEx and UPS cargo planes last week. In contrast to recent shameful attempts by many Republicans, most prominently Rudy Giuliani, to politicize the ongoing battle with Al Qaeda, King passed up the chance to make hay on election eve over the issue.
Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, King, the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, had this to say about the Administration’s actions:
“In the past…I’ve had differences with John Brennan [Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism], but let me make it clear: on this particular matter the Administration is handling it perfectly. They received actionable intelligence, they shared it with our allies, they did what had to be done, the FBI, the TSA—the TSA especially, under John Pistole. They did what they had to do. Everything was done right, they continue to do it right, I give them full credit.”
No equivocation, no hint that Republicans could have done it better, no nudge to vote Republican tomorrow. Just praise for federal workers doing their important jobs right. Reinhold Niebuhr would have applauded King’s contribution to “the temper and integrity of the political fight.
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Tags: al Qaeda, bombing attempts, Committee on Homeland Security, ethics, Face the Nation, FBI, federal workers, FedEx and UPS cargo planes, intelligence, John Brennan, John Pistole, Niebuhr, Obama administration, Peter King, Rudy Giuliani, TSA
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | Leave a Comment »
October 27, 2010
It’s getting sickening to watch NFL games, and the league needs to do something about it. Last week there was a blizzard of concussions due to unpenalized and unpunished helmet-to helmet blows to the heads of helpless victims, most notably the young Eagles star receiver and kick returner DeSean Jackson.
Monday night it was the vicious hit by New York Giants linebacker Michael Boley that crushed Dallas quarterback Tony Romo’s shoulder, sidelining Romo indefinitely, and putting an end to Dallas playoff hopes.
Everybody agrees that Boley made a ”legal” hit, which is what makes it so awful. Boley hit Romo just after he released a pass, then continued to drive Romo shoulder first into the artificial turf. The injury appeared to be the intent of the hit; if not the intent, then a welcome bonus.
There’s no reason for the league to permit such mayhem, practiced against the games glamour players: the star quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receivers. For egregious roughness of quarterbacks, or helmet-to helmet hits, which are life-threatening, the perpetrators should be suspended for as long as the victim is unable to play—plus one game. That penalty would cut the frequency drastically.
If the NFL doesn’t take strong action it will turn off its fans while it destroys its marquee players.
Tags: concussions, DeSean Jackson, ethics, helmet-to helmet contact, Michael Boley, New York Giants, NFL violence, Tony Romo
Posted in Ethics-general, Sports | 2 Comments »
October 25, 2010
The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reports that the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish ship carrying supplies for blockaded Gaza, had altered their course to avert a diplomatic crisis.
“During our departure, we said we were going to Gaza, but the coordinates that we gave were to Egyptian territorial waters. Everyone was aware of our course to [the Egyptian port] El-Arish,” Bülent Yıldırım, the head of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or İHH, said today. “The situation required us to go there.” He added that the U.S. ambassador in Ankara was notified, and told Israeli authorities.
Hurriyet is a credible source, not a mouthpiece for the Turkish government—far from it: it has been so critical of the government and so set on exposing corruption that the Erdogan government, in its most anti-democratic action, is trying to put Hurriyet and its sister publications out of business.
In the same edition the paper reports that the Israeli military chief of staff testified before the Israeli commission investigating the incident that Israeli commandoes fired live ammunition only after the Turks fired first, an account in stark opposition to a recent U.N.-commissioned report into the raid, which said there was “no evidence to suggest that any of the passengers used firearms or that any firearms were taken on board the ship.” Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Bülent Yıldırım, cover-up, El-Arish, Erdogan, ethics, Gaza, Humanitarian Relief Foundation, Israel, Israeli commandoes, Mavi Marmara, national security, Turkey, İHH
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, International, military | 2 Comments »
October 24, 2010
California voters face two critical ballot issues, and have a chance to reward the person who has arguably had the most positive influence on California politics in a generation.
First, the ballot measures: Presently California legislators—members of the state senate, assembly, and U. S. Congress—don’t have to contest their general elections because of extreme gerrymandering*: the winner of the primary gets a free ride in the general.
Proof? In the last four election cycles (2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008) combined, only nine seats have changed parties in 648 California legislative and congressional races. Or looking at it like a betting person, the incumbent party has a 981/2 percent chance of holding on to each seat. Stalin and Mao would have been impressed.
In 2008, California voted to take the power to set state legislative district boundaries away from legislators and give it to an independent nonpartisan commission. Next week there are two ballot measures about drawing district boundaries:
Proposition 20 would do for congressional districts what the 2008 measure did for assembly and state senate districts—give the job to the independent nonpartisan commission established by the 2008 vote. This would remove from elected officials the power to choose their own voters and get re-elected at will.
Proposition 27 would reverse the 2008 reform and return the redistricting powers to the legislature.
Passage of proposition 20 and defeat of proposition 27 would transfer the choice of legislators from the party primaries to the general elections, where it belongs. This will have a beneficial effect far beyond justmaking lifetime incumbency rare. Nonpartisan redistricting will encourage candidates for office to run more civil campaigns, because they will need to attract voters from the center of the political spectrum. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Abel Maldonado, California 38th Congressional district, California ballot measures, California election, civility, decline-to-state voters, district boundaries, ethics, general elections, gerrymandering, Grace Napolitano, Lieutenant Governor, lifetime incumbency, nonpartisan commission, open primary, Proposition 20, Proposition 27, redistricting
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics | 6 Comments »
October 22, 2010
In the search for diverse opinions on television I like MSNBC’s Morning Joe, an entertaining roundtable of people you would enjoy having at your next dinner party. Hosts Joe Scarborough—a conservative former Congressman—and Mika Brzezinski—a liberal daughter of President Carter’s National Security advisor—are politically balanced while being friendly and civil. Their guests span the political spectrum, and the conversations are usually spirited. Nobody on the show claims to be objective, they just bounce their opinions off each other. Fun and informative.
Today, in the wake of NPR’s firing of Juan Williams, there was some discussion of objectivity in the media. Mika had a proposal that would improve the credibility of reporters and commentators of all stripes:
“I would argue that nobody is objective in journalism: that we all come from our own world views and our own backgrounds and our own political affiliations, and we’ve voted for Presidents, and you know what! It’s time to be honest [about it}—and then we can be trusted.
Honesty: What a concept!
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Tags: ethics, Joe Scarborough, Juan Williams, Mika Brzezinski, Morning Joe, MSNBC, objectivity in the media
Posted in Entertainment, Ethics-general, Media, Politics | Leave a Comment »
October 21, 2010
“Juan Williams, Martyr to Tolerance.” That’s the title of a provocative Ethics Alarms piece by Jack Marshall. Juan Williams was fired by NPR for saying this on to Bill O’Reilly on Fox News:
“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
Marshall excoriates NPR’s action as the intolerable “intolerance of the self-righteous heralds of toleration.”
I’m conflicted over this one. I don’t think Juan Williams should have been fired, but I find his statement very unfair, and somewhere between ignorant and bigoted.
Ignorant, because Muslims wear all kinds of garb, including the sporty American look that the 9/11 hijackers apparently tried to present. Bigoted, because it’s bigotry to assign stereotypical characteristics to individuals, whether to assume that Jews are money-grubbing, that Irish are drunks, that black men are sex-crazed, or that evangelical Christians are gay-bashers.
For Americans in 2010 it’s particularly hurtful to stereotype Muslims as terrorists, as many on the political right are now doing. A scary portion of the population is buying into the idea of Muslims as “other.” It’s horribly unfair to people who are Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: 9/11 hijackers, al Qaeda, anti-Muslim comments, anti-Semitism, “other”, bigotry, Christ-killing, Edward R. Murrow, ethics, Ethics Alarms, evangelical Christians, firing, Fox News, gay-bashers, intolerance, Irish, Jack Marshall. Bill O’Reilly, Jews, Juan Williams, Muslim garb, National Public Radio, NPR, political correctness, political right, stereotypes, terrorists, tolerance, war with Islam
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Media, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
October 19, 2010
Christine O’Donnell is the Republican candidate for Senate in Delaware. When asked why she thought she was qualified to be a Senator she gave this as her chief qualification:
“I have a graduate fellowship from the Claremont Institute in Constitutional Government, and it is that deep analysis of the Constitution that has helped me to analyze and have an opinion on what’s going on today.”
At today’s candidate forum in Wilmington O’Donnell challenged her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons about where in the Constitution did it say anything about separation of church and state. When the audience gasped and laughed she grinned, thinking she had him there. She went on to demonstrate shock and surprise when Coons told her about the First Amendment. It was news to her.
O’Donnell will likely lose on November 2: not so sure to lose is Sharon Angle, Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, who believes that Sharia law reigns today in Dearborn, Michigan.
What does this say about the Republican voters who voted for such people?
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Tags: Chris Coons, Christine O’Donnell, Claremont Institute, Constitution, Dearborn Michigan, ethics, First Amendment, Nevada, Senate Delaware, separation of church and state, Sharia law, Sharon Angle
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics, Tolerance | 1 Comment »
October 18, 2010
Chris Matthews and Chris Wallace each earned a (mythical) Reinhold Niebuhr award* for bringing good temper and integrity into the political fight. The highest level of political ethics is to call out members of one’s own party, or people whose politics you’re in general sympathy with. We expect to see MSNBC commentators like Matthews ripping Republicans, just as we expect to see Fox News commentators like Wallace ripping Dems. Ho hum, no surprise there, and no contribution to the integrity of the political fight.
But when California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina came on Fox News Sunday Wallace grilled her about her plan to close California’s huge budget gap, finally exposing her as an empty suit. And when Kentucky Democratic Senate Candidate Jack Conway came on Chris Matthews’ Hardball show, Matthews grilled him about his campaign ad questioning his opponent’s Christianity, exposing Conway’s ad as baseless and scurrilous.
Our civic society is being ripped by the bitter antagonism between left and right, the worst since the bad old days of Senator Joe McCarthy, red hunts, and leftish defenses of Soviet spies. It’s made worse by the ease of getting all one’s news from a kind of “Daily Me,” an assortment of media that reflect only one’s own bias. Fox News Sunday and MSNBC’s Hardball took a step away from the cartoonish view of them as mouthpieces for liberalism and conservatism. The two Chris’s interviews are in the highest traditions of Niebuhr’s goal of a healthy society.
______
*Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr 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: Carly Fiorina, Chris Matthews, Chris Wallace, Daily Me, Fox News, Fox News Sunday, Hardball, Jack Conway, MSNBC, political ethics, Reinhold Niebuhr, Senator Joe McCarthy
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Media, Politics | 3 Comments »
October 6, 2010
EthicsBob recently slammed Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for his failure to denounce Israel’s former chief rabbi for calling for death to all Palestinians: his office merely issued a statement that the rabbi’s views “don’t represent” Netanyahu’s. But when Jewish settlers set fire to a West Bank mosque this week the Israeli Prime Minister quickly ordered Israeli security forces to “act firmly to quickly uncover the criminals and bring them to justice.” Defense Minister Ehud Barak went further, calling the perpetrators “terrorists in every sense of the word.”
It’s beyond my memory that any senior Israeli official publicly called violent religious settlers terrorists. Hooray for Barak; hooray even for Netanyahu.
Sadly there are people on both sides of the Jewish/Arab divide who use the incident to inflame. The UK-based Middle East Monitor headlined its coverage, “Israeli settlers burn yet another mosque in occupied Palestine.” It implied that the crime had the assent of the Israeli establishment, saying that “In the current climate of global Islamophobia these uncivilised and intolerant acts will evoke little or no condemnation or censure.”
Not true. Netanyahu and Barak are siding against the Israeli terrorists. That’s a good thing. There’s no excuse for failing to credit it.
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Tags: chief rabbi, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Islamophobia, Israel, Jewish settlers, Jewish terrorists, Middle East Monitor, mosque-burners, Netanyahu, Palestinians, West Bank mosque
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, International, Politics, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
President Obama leaves Friday for a ten-day trip to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan. His trip will cost $200 million a day, or $2 billion for the trip, on which. he will be escorted by 34 warships, twelve percent of the United States Navy. All this according to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
Ethics Bob 
NPR fires Juan Williams for anti-Muslim comments: intolerance, political correctness, or a stand against bigotry?
October 21, 2010“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
Marshall excoriates NPR’s action as the intolerable “intolerance of the self-righteous heralds of toleration.”
I’m conflicted over this one. I don’t think Juan Williams should have been fired, but I find his statement very unfair, and somewhere between ignorant and bigoted.
Ignorant, because Muslims wear all kinds of garb, including the sporty American look that the 9/11 hijackers apparently tried to present. Bigoted, because it’s bigotry to assign stereotypical characteristics to individuals, whether to assume that Jews are money-grubbing, that Irish are drunks, that black men are sex-crazed, or that evangelical Christians are gay-bashers.
For Americans in 2010 it’s particularly hurtful to stereotype Muslims as terrorists, as many on the political right are now doing. A scary portion of the population is buying into the idea of Muslims as “other.” It’s horribly unfair to people who are Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 9/11 hijackers, al Qaeda, anti-Muslim comments, anti-Semitism, “other”, bigotry, Christ-killing, Edward R. Murrow, ethics, Ethics Alarms, evangelical Christians, firing, Fox News, gay-bashers, intolerance, Irish, Jack Marshall. Bill O’Reilly, Jews, Juan Williams, Muslim garb, National Public Radio, NPR, political correctness, political right, stereotypes, terrorists, tolerance, war with Islam
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Media, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »