Of course the irony in all this is that the story he was trying to kill (that he was in a relationship with a reporter) wouldn’t have hurt him at all. They took appropriate safeguards to ensure there was no conflict of interests and even got a cute People article out of it. If he’d kept his mouth shut he’d have been fine.
Any second now, @Aji_de_Gallina will be in to congratulate the Biden administration on a job well done. He’s the one who started the original liberal-hypocrisy version of this thread.
While I liked Biden’s statement in principle, I thought it might lead to trouble in cases where the situation might not be as clear-cut as this one. It didn’t allow much room for a graded response depending on the seriousness of the offense.
Yea, I’ve never been a fan of announcing broad Zero-Tolerance policies. President Delirious would not have said “If I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect or talk down to someone I will fire you on the spot,” he would have said “If it’s proven you did this, expect consequences, you won’t get a free one.”
Though yes, in this case, Ducklo’s mouth clearly wrote a check his ass had to cash.
Yes, “fired on the spot” creates a very high expectation that sets Biden up for criticism anytime he takes some time to establish the facts of the situation. That said, this took longer than it should have. It’s pretty clear that they didn’t want to fire someone who had shown a lot of loyalty and hard work during the campaign, and whom everyone in the White House seems to consider a friend. But they came around to making the right decision, and ultimately this whole episode will not merit even a passing mention in the history books.
Do you need to drive the knife even further? But, yeah, he did a better job in OPing it.
Even though he resigned, and wasn’t fired on the spot, tar-and-feathered, I’ll take the victory lap while congratularing Biden for kicking the creep out.
Credit where credit is due. WELL DONE, JOE!!