No, the review was professional and (by other accounts) accurate. It was more gently rebuking than harsh, in my opinion.
Well, the response was published, so a kajiilion or so.
Interestingly enough, Hume arguably profited by the exchange: he sold the letter to a collector the following year for $3,500. And there was no bad blood: after he retired, Hume was passing through Missouri and dropped in on the former president, who welcomed him and played the piano for him.
Daughter Margaret did not prosper as a singer. She did, however, become an well-regarded author, writing a series of murder mysteries set in various DC landmarks.
Trump is not a private person. He is on the clock 24/7/365 whether he likes it or not. His mixing his personal, petty and trite comments within his official duties makes him fair game for ethics and conduct issues.
If Trump were a civil service federal employee, he would have already failed probation and been terminated for cause.
This is indicative of what lays beneath the surface with Trump’s personality defects. Trump can’t accept criticism in any form, whether it’s directed at him or his family. Psychologically, the next 4 years will destroy Trump and his ego. You already see this as he feels the need to defend everything critical by lying, misrepresenting, or misleading. False news, alternative facts are his defense against realizing he’s screwed in the melon. Trump is a psychological disaster waiting to happen, and constant criticism of him and much of his family (fair, with respect to those who are his “advisors”) will destroy him faster that an assassin’s bullet.
Nothing in what she said leads me to believe she is offering anything other than a personal opinion. She clearly identifies her opinion, based on her experience with the clothes. This does not say or imply that the federal government endorses the clothes.
A brief review of federal case law involving 2635.702 finds no case that rests on similar grounds.
If the GOP decides that he has outlived his usefulness, he can be impeached for wearing the pelt of an endangered tribble on his head, if enough Congresscritters agree.
That said, it would be a bit silly to impeach him for this when there are dozens of more egregious violations of law/ethics/norms/human decency in his record.
But she specifically says that she is giving them “a free commercial”. In other words, she’s standing in a government room, being interviewed in her role as a government employee and then providing a service for a non-governmental person. How can that not be considered “endorsement of any product”, or “for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity”?
Agreed. Hume’s criticism was in fact balanced by acknowledging that Margaret had “a pleasant voice” and was “extremely attractive” on stage, but simply could not sing very well. He also acknowledged an obligation to honesty; he was, after all, a respected long-time music critic, a professor of the history of music at Georgetown and visiting professor of music history at Yale for many years, and a long-time radio host of a classical music station.
Truman’s reaction was uncalled for and out of all proportion to the perceived offense, but notably different from the Trump example is that it was done in private. In fact the Post refused to print it even at Hume’s insistence, and it was eventually publicized when Hume made it available to the competing Washington News. It caused such a furor against Truman that the White House received more than 10,000 letters, deploring his letter by a margin of 2:1, causing Truman to somewhat lamely claim that he wrote it, not as the president, but in a private capacity as a loving father.
Of course it absolutely is. The amazing thing is that people like Conway are so utterly devoid of integrity that they lurch through these ethical transgressions with no sense at all that they’re doing anything wrong.
And if so, by whom? Big difference ethically between a private communication made public by the recipient and a public denouncement of a business decision.
Are state government officials required to put their assets in a blind trust? Are military personnel? There were plenty of presidents who were never federal employees or officeholders.
Can you give me a list of all laws that nobody has ever been prosecuted for? I’d like to know what laws I can break without worrying about any consequence. I never knew that laws can be ignored if they’ve never before been enforced. Does this also mean that any new laws that are passed can also be ignored, since they by definition cannot be enforced given that they never before have been?
Just to clear out a slight distinction, this is a federal regulation, as opposed to a statute passed by Congress.
Secondly, the issue is not that the regulation itself is never enforced, but that it’s never been enforced in this kind of situation.
As an example, you may remember the FBI’s analysis of Secretary Clinton’s e-mail handling of classified information. Even though her conduct technically was covered by the statute, Comey explained, there had never been a prosecution unless the perpetrator was motivated by more deliberate concerns than Clinton had been.
As readers may remember, I defended that view at the time, pointing out here repeatedly how Comey was correct.
Yeah. “Corruption” and breaking the law are two distinct things. Even democrats can get that if they hear it repeated enough. Thanks for your valiant service.
But we are up to our ears in “corruption” here. (And oh yeah she did actually break the law. How about that?)