Former ethics chief under Obama is disgusted with Biden
Walter Shaub was the head of the Office of Government Ethics under Obama (and under Bush, and very briefly under Trump till Shaub resigned the post). In his official capacity he was especially tasked with monitoring possible conflict of interests (or is it conflicts of interest?).
Here are some tweets Shaub has put up recently:
Pathetic! The responses from people who spent 4 years complaining the other side was putting party over country are pathetic. They sound just like MAGAs. The jobs went to privileged kiddos with mommies & daddies who cozied up to POTUS. Nepotism is illegal. https://t.co/LumH4uSzSt
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) June 18, 2021
People on the right sometimes ask me why I try to understand the workings of the minds of people on the left. I think it’s obviously important: if you’re interested in changing minds politically you have to at least attempt to think about why people believe what they do. But sometimes I admit I’m flummoxed – thus, so many “fool or knave?” posts on this blog, and so many “maybe both” answers.
So with Shaub we have this: “A lot of us worked hard to tee him up to restore ethics to government and believed the promises.” I assume that the promises referred to there are the ones made by Joe Biden during his 2020 campaign. But why on earth would any intelligent person – except for the most naive and/or the most partisan – have believed the promises of a long-term corrupt political hack such as Biden? A person could hope, I suppose. But believe? The mind boggles.
So Shaub was either unintelligent, or non-observant, or naive, or hopelessly partisan, or all of the above or some combination of the above. He doesn’t seem as partisan as some now, though, since he’s criticizing Biden quite strongly here. But his partisanship shows when he offers what is probably one of the worst insults he can muster about those making excuses for Biden: “They sound just like MAGAS.”
Actually, Shaub, they sound just like hypocritical political hacks who refuse to apply the same rules to both sides. As an ethicist, surely you must know that?
Apparently not. Shaub actually does seem rather shocked at all of this, which is somewhat shocking in itself for a long-time participant in the federal government.
“Biden” unethical??
Sorry. Within the context and set of operating definitions of the “Biden” administration, “he” is the most ethical president the country has ever seen.
Proof?
Well, aside from his extraordinarily ethical achievements regarding the southern border, his unabashed support for CRT, his hyperinflating the economy, his genius son, his repeated lies about “the Insurrection”(TM)—and of course the November election—here’s some more recent proof (for those of us with short memories):
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-pushing-see-nuke-deal-through-new-iranian-president-takes-office
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/pentagon-under-biden-withdrawing-missile-batteries-middle-east
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/former-president-trump-offers-plan-get-divisive-radical-theories-out-our-schools
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/reading-writing-and-ratting-each-other-out
Sound like MAGAs, eh?….
So, where was this character Shaub when the IRS and other govt. agencies under Obama, were politicized and used as weapons against anti-Obama groups and individuals??
When the FBI / NSA – or whomever – was spying on the Trump campaign??
Where was he when Ocommies AG , Holder, ran the guns smuggling operation into Mexico?
Oh, that’s right. nowhere.
He was invisible.
He can go F himself.
Folks like him have no problem being invisible when unethical behavior is in accordance with their political world view, irrespective of any violation of laws or ethics.
It’s only when they witness actions that they personally do not like or have affected them negatively, that they raise a shit storm.
Somehow, somewhere , somebody within the Bidet administration must have done something to him and pissed him off to the extent that he now feels obliged to open his anal pie hole.
The more I hear about stuff like this, the more I think the USA needs to split itself up into several independent nations. The entrenched bureaucracy just gets bigger and bigger and more and more corrupt and nobody makes any effort to dismantle it.
And those that try, are met with endless road blocks.
John Tyler:
Yes, he may be doing this now for some personal reason that has little to do with politics.
It’s simple. Shaub is a Trotskyite. A true believer. He’s not upset with Biden over using the federal government to shove the unconstitutional policies the left favors down the throats of Americans who disagree. No, if it advances the agenda, regardless of how unethical, he’s down with it. Does anyone here imagine that Obama would actually have someone in that position who was objectively ethical?
He’s upset solely with nepotism. Which is a direct violation of ‘equity’. It’s ‘elite’ privilege which upsets him. How naive, how willfully blind to Marxism’s history. How ignorant of human nature.
Pretty sure MAGAs (whatever that is) weren’t too happy with Trump placing family members in political positions.
As John Tyler points out, this guy can go fuck himself.
Secularity, particularly as practiced by Progressives, does not generate morality. Quite the contrary. They invent rules (nepotism is bad) only to violate them when the “need” in their eyes requires it. JFK made his brother the AG, and he was just a few years out of law school.
From reading wiki I get the impression the Office of Government Ethics has a pretty narrow charter relating to conflict of interest issues involving members of the Executive Branch — such as nepotism and fraud.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_Government_Ethics
The President could be sending members of the opposition party to the ovens, but the OGE wouldn’t care unless the President was profiting from the oven contract.
Not that it makes me like Mr. Schaub any better.
Agree quite possibly Trotskyite, the Stalinist Gulags were filled with them.
They are elitists. The thing about elites that they are certain that power is theirs by right and that any privileges they enjoy as a result of that power are also theirs by right.
Neo, a friend sent this article earlier today, and my response to her was this:
“Chris, I don’t really care. An Obama ethics official? That’s the biggest oxymoron I’ve ever heard. This fellow is part of the hate-filled leftist cartel that looks down on you and me, a deep state player who sees us as impediments to their “transformation” of a nation and its history that they detest, who would create gulags and send you to one in a heartbeat if he had the authority. I guarantee you he supports the Maoist cancel/struggle sessions taking place all over the country – I flat guarantee it. He doesn’t actually care about nepotism – he cares about affirmative action blacks replacing whites, femi-nazis replacing men, transgenders replacing normals. F*!k him. I hope it make him so angry he gives himself an aneurysm and rids the world of his sick presence. That would be the real gift he could give to the country.”
Telemachus:
He was originally in the job under Bush. He continued under Obama.
If he’s a complete leftist tool, why is he so angry at Biden? I don’t think it’s quite as straightforward and simple as you say.
He is mad because he is like Flounder in “Animal House” after the road trip and Otter tells him “You F’ed up. You trusted us!”
But we knew this was going to happen. Biden’s history of deceit, lies and profiteering was there for all to see. They just chose not to because Trump was breaking their narrative and interrupting the impoverishment of the middle class including blacks.
But as I tell every bitcher and moaner “You should be happy. YOU VOTED FOR IT.” They have no rebuttal.
I have it on good authority that this Schaub fellow also was flabbergasted that there was gambling going on in Rick’s Cafe Americain. When he found out, he exclaimed, “Shocked, I tell you! I’m shocked!”
News flash! People with connections have the advantage in competing for patronage jobs. Fretting over the distribution of patronage jobs (which account for less than 0.2% of the federal workforce) when the federal government is awash in corruption and abuse of power just marks you as a twee fool. Another favorite of his office was accusing employees of Hatch Act violations for appearing on broadcast interview programs. He’s not a serious person and it’s difficult to imagine that OGE is an agency worth funding.
What we actually need in the federal government is a serious system of examinations for recruitment and promotion to nearly all civilian positions.
We also need to extend to administrators nearly plenary discretion to dismiss employees – three signatures from your chain-of-command and you’re gone. Terminated employees who could demonstrate to a review board by a preponderance of the evidence they were dismissed for one of a half-dozen impermissible reasons would be due an indemnity and would trigger proceedings against those who signed off on their dismissal. It’s important that discretion be limited in filling positions to those who meet impersonal standards; it’s not necessary to have federal employees’ feet nailed to the floor to assure professionalism.
And, while we’re at it, transparent systems of compensation is a must. So is limiting compensation per worker in the public sector to a fixed ratio of compensation per worker in the private sector. Of course, we’ll never get either.
Heading an government ethics office does not make one an ethicist, Neo. Shaub is an attorney whose bio indicates no special interest nor training in ethics. The law is ethical in name only, as you know.
Shaub is a bureaucrat, pure and simple.
Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Rahm, claims to be a medical ethicist, but there is nothing ethical about him. He basically claims that most lives are not worth living post age 75 and is flirting with age-related euthanasia…”to help the more needy, the more worthy”.
He is just slightly short of being a Che Guevara, another MD who liked ending lives.
One needs to choose one’s ethicists with care. Most academic bioethicists are leftists, as I discovered when investigating formal training therein after my retirement.
Which is why I support the National Catholic Bioethics Center and read its publications.
Shaub’s motive with his comments? Who knows?
Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Rahm, claims to be a medical ethicist, but there is nothing ethical about him. He basically claims that most lives are not worth living post age 75
Steve Sailer’s hypothesis is that Emanuel was irritated with his father for living so long.
Dig into Emanuel’s QALY–Quality-Adjusted Life Years– as an ethical basis for making medical decisions. Makes my blood run cold.
}}} A lot of us worked hard to tee him up to restore ethics to government and believed the promises.
What kinda frickin’ MORON are you? Want to buy some LAND?!?!
Y’know, you ought to get that “moron” thing checked out, in case you have some late-in-life children or something.
SMH.
Not worth living past 75? Someone should point out the “call” (the warning), “Dead man walking”, i.e. “nothing to loose”. Wanna play?
Shaub must not have gort his “cut” from Hunter. Poor baby. “Ethics” means gimme mine!
Zeke Emanuel has 11 years and 3 months of life remaining. I hope to be around to see him set an example for us all.
If he’s a complete leftist tool, why is he so angry at Biden? I don’t think it’s quite as straightforward and simple as you say.
He’s angry because he can’t continue to pile on Trump as the worst person ever based on his “unethical” hiring practices. Of course being so focused on nepotism he misses the bigger picture, which is corruption and incompetence regardless of family connections. Lois Lerner, Comey, Brennan et al were just out and out corrupt, but no problem there because nepotism wasn’t involved. Yes, the hell with him.
Might have been someone here on another thread, but I remember a comment along the lines of, “If Biden appointed anyone in his family to a government post, they would have to take a pay cut.”