President Obama’s Inability to understand Ethics

This bit of news has been making the rounds on the right wing blogs, but as of yet I haven’t seen anyone make the right point about it:

Four of the most powerful business leaders in America arrived at the White House one day last month for lunch with President Barack Obama, sitting down in his private dining room just steps from the Oval Office.

But even for powerful CEOs, there’s no such thing as a free lunch: White House staffers collected credit card numbers for each executive and carefully billed them for the cost of the meal with the president.

The White House defended the unusual move as a way to avoid conflicts of interest.

Excuse me? If the President went to a corporate event, and insisted on reimbursing the company for the cost of his visit, that would be “avoiding a conflict of interest.” That’s why there are rules about lobbyists buying things for Members of Congress. But, to the best of my knowledge, there’s no law preventing a politician from buying things <b>for</b> a lobbyist.

What is mainly on display here is “class”, as in “complete lack of”. But their explanations show something even worse than their complete lack of class:

The fact that no one in the Obama Administration even understand what ethics is. I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised that a Chicago politician backed by the Daley Machine isn’t really clear on the requirements of ethical behavior, but I do find it disappointing.

Jim Geraghty has a near constant refrain (“near constant” because President Obama gives him some many opportunities to use it): “All promises from Obama come with an expiration date.” A fish rots from the head down. So do Administrations. The Obama Administration starts with the liar in chief. Below him we have tax cheats, crooks, political hacks who care about nothing besides winning elections, and inexperienced, clueless losers.

“A” people hire “A” people, “B” people hire “C” people. By the (poor) quality of the people around him, we can judge President Obama.

HT: Slublog posting at Ace’s site, Fausta

Liberals have no judgment

All through the Bush years, a common scene played out: Republicans would point out that a particular left winger was a blithering idiot, proposing lame brained polices that simply could not achieve their stated goal. The leftie, unable to defend the policies, would respond “Don’t question my patriotism!” The Republicans would respond that “we’re not questioning your patriotism, we’re questioning your judgment.” The leftie would ignore this and keep on whining about patriotism.

With the advent of the Obama Administration, we now see lefties constantly criticizing Republicans’ patriotism (“Republicans just want to destroy the country” is my favorite so far), especially on the issue of going after Obama’s nominees (Megan McArdle’s post spurred me to write this, but Thomas Friedman’s whine in the NYT was a fine example of the genre). Some thoughts on the matter:

1. Barack Obama is a big-government, high-tax leftie, and that’s the kind of Administration he’s running.
2. If you want me to pay lots of taxes, then you damn well better be paying all of your taxes. That’s called reciprocity.
3. IF you think the government should be big, and therefore taxes on other people should be high, but you think it’s perfectly fine for you to cheat on your taxes and not pay your “fair share”, then we are now deeply into issues of character and judgment. Those are issues that must be considered when judging a nominee.
4. Another issue that should be judged is your willingness to follow the rules, and the law.  “The rules for thee, but not for me” is not the attitude I want to see in anybody in government.
5. If the laws are so unworkable, change them.  Tell us why those laws are such a bad idea, and get them repealed.  I see no evidence of the Obama Administration being willing to do that.  In fact, I see the opposite.
6. “Oh”, you say, “I just couldn’t find a nanny for my kids who was willing to be paid ‘above the table’.” Bullshit. Let’s say your nanny was willing to accept $30,000 / year under the table. Then you could pay her $45,000 – $50,000 / year and that would give her $30,000 / year take home pay. She’s better off because she’s working legally, you’re better off because you’re now living according to the rules and principles you wish to force on everyone else.
7. What’s that you say? You don’t want to have to pay an extra $15,000 – $20,000 / year in taxes to the government? Neither do I. You’re the one who wants to work for the guy who wants to raise my taxes. You going to tell him it’s not right to force people to pay more to the government? No? Then I guess you should have paid the government everything it was owed, rather than keeping the money for yourself by paying your nanny under the table.
8. Clinton had the same problems in 1993. President Bush did not have the same problems in 2001. So I’d say the real problem here is that Democrats are crooks, hypocrites, and your basic all around scum. People who favor the rest of us paying high taxes, but only because they have scams that let them get out of paying those same taxes themselves.

In short, I feel no sympathy for Obama, his nominees, or Democrats in general. You want a big government, then you damn well better be willing to follow all of its rules. If you can’t, then stop trying to force them on the rest of us.