Dilbert on Hypocrisy

This is the first time I can remember that hypocrisy was mentioned in one of the comic strips I follow regularly. Below is the Dilbert published in the newspaper and on, Feb 25, 2009 on the Dilbert website.

The claim that corporate and Congressional executives flew together to a Congressional hearing isn't credible nor do I know of any case where the same plane was used for Congressional travel (Congressional delegations usually use either 1st class commercial or military aircraft) and Corporate travel (G pointed out that the expression 'same jet' is ambiguous). So, the 'same jet' may simply mean "a Gulfstream 3" or even "a Gulfstream".

The general claim that Congressional people are pompous is credible. Also if the general charge were that Congressional people says "don't use expensive perks" that would be hypocrisy because Congressional people do use expensive perks.

Let's Look at Some Ethics Promises of Obama/Biden

There was, as of today, a website used by the Obama/Biden campaign which made a number of commitments on ethics.

Here were some of the commitments (from at website):

• Close the revolving door on former and future employers:

  No political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.

• Sunlight Before Signing: Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.
• Shine Light on Earmarks and Pork Barrel Spending: Obama's Transparency and Integrity in Earmarks Act will shed light on all earmarks by disclosing the name of the legislator who asked for each earmark, along with a written justification, 72 hours before they can be approved by the full Senate.

Regarding the first bullet, there are, as of today, about two dozen known former lobbyists (depending on the definition) who have been appointed. The Obama/Biden Administration has said that these are exceptions. There are also an unknown number (at least a dozen have been specifically announced) of people who went from the Obama/Biden campaign directly to lobbying companies. This, of course, is not covered by the ethics promise.

Regarding the second bullet, President Obama signed two bills, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the State Children Health Insurance Program within two days (the second within hours) after it passed Congress. The Obama/Biden Administration has not said whether these were exceptions (hard to believe they could be called 'emergencies').

Regarding the third bullet, there were many egregious clauses in the Simulus Bill (one for an $8 billion maglev program, another $30M for habitat protection for a mouse that lives in the SF Bay area). Obama signed it 4 days after the Congress passed it (The President did say was an emergency - unlike the Ledbetter or S-Chips legislation which took less time to sign).

Here is a problem. I faced it when I was in government. The problem is "what is an earmark?". It may be that the common sense definition of 'earmark' is not used by President Obama. Here is one definition by the OMB (which is part of the executive branch),

"... funds provided by Congress for projects or programs where the congressional direction (in bill or report language) circumvents Executive Branch merit-based or competitive allocation processes, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the Executive Branch to manage critical aspects of the funds allocation process."

Here is the Congressional Research Service definition,

"Provisions associated with legislation (appropriations or general legislation) that specify certain congressional spending priorities or in revenue bills that apply to a very limited number of individuals or entities. Earmarks may appear in either the legislative text or report language (committee reports accompanying reported bills and joint explanatory statement accompanying a conference report)"

We don't know what Obama's definition is.

In this case, it seems to me that the Obama campaign promise itself was clearly an example of an overpromise because bringing the sunlight to earmarks is a congressional responsibility which is difficult for the executive to fill unless they have spies among the staffers in the drafting and conference committees.

Let's see if the President has anything to say about any of these issues in the coming weeks before completing the analysis.

Postscript: It is now (Writing on March 15) several weeks later. Obama seems to have the position, "well I said I would curtail earmarks, I didn't say when". Yuck.

Also, here is an interesting except from Obama's second memoir, "The Audacity of Hope"

"..."Genuine bipartisanship assumes an honest process of give-and-take, and that the quality of the compromise is measured by how well it serves some agreed-upon goal, whether better schools or lower deficits. This in turn assumes that the majority will be constrained -- by an exacting press corps and ultimately an informed electorate -- to negotiate in good faith....

If these conditions do not hold -- if nobody outside Washington is really paying attention to the substance of the bill, if the true costs . . . are buried in phony accounting and understated by a trillion dollars or so -- the majority party can begin every negotiation by asking for 100% of what it wants, go on to concede 10%, and then accuse any member of the minority party who fails to support this 'compromise' of being 'obstructionist.'...

"For the minority party in such circumstances, 'bipartisanship' comes to mean getting chronically steamrolled, although individual senators may enjoy certain political rewards by consistently going along with the majority and hence gaining a reputation for being 'moderate' or 'centrist.'

More Hypocrisy From Celebrity Greens

- or is it

The London (England) Times has obtained (it didn't say how) an infrared image of several neighborhoods in London with homes owned by celebrity 'anti-Global Warming' advocates (the image is from the article and the bright red - very 'leaky' home is owned by singer Chris Martin and actress Gwyneth Paltrow- both anti GW advocates). The Times says it provided the images to a company that analyzes the images for wasted heat. It found that a number of celebrities have homes that are leaking heat, presumably because of poor insulation, over design with windows, etc. It also had estimates for lost energy for other homes:

Lost energy

Sir David Attenborough, broadcaster: 288kg

Lord Smith of Finsbury, chairman of the Environment Agency: 186kg

John Sauven, director of Greenpeace: 158kg

Richard Chartres, Bishop of London: 135kg

Hilary Benn, environment secretary: 126kg

Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary: 121kg

David Cameron, Tory leader: 21kg

There are several issues here. First, is the data accurate? Second, is the data analysis accurate? Third is the interpretation of the analysis appropriate (for example, if some of these homes are used for multiperson offices, the 'excess heat/person' may be much less).

Above all is the issue of knowledge. Does, for example, Lord Smith realize his home is poorly insulated and has leaky windows? If he does know and does nothing about it and advocates other people should insulate and fix leaky windows, that does make him a hypocrite. But really, what if he doesn't realize his house is an energy waster? That would just make him a fool (or an ignoramus or even a pompous ignoramus) which seems actually worse that being a hypocrite.

Did Obama Break A Campaign Promise and then "Disappear" the Promise

The fellow in the image is Lloyd Chapman. He blogs for the American Small Business League. He maintains that Senator Obama promised during his campaign,

"....Small businesses are the backbone of our nation's economy and we must protect this great resource. It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants."

He then states that President Obama has not done anything yet to implement this and has, in fact, made the situation worse. He also notes that some websites which featured Senator Obama's promise to small business have disappeared (but he had screen saves of them I gather).

As to hypocrisy, it is far too early to tell. Three weeks into an administration isn't time to implement pro small business practices (full disclosure: I think, based on my experience as a federal govt employee, a lot of the federal govt.'s small business practices are wasteful; I think it is almost indisputable that the regulation in this area drives up the cost of certain highway items, e.g., guardrail, line painting, etc.). Let's see what this fellow says this time next year.


The Wikipedia site on Mr. Chapman is here. He apparently sued the Bush administration a number of times so it doesn't seem he is a partisan Republican.

Mr. Chapman's blog was put out as a PR piece by the American Small Business League.

The Obama campaign website had a promise on the small business issue.

Prince Charles on an Ecotour

Prince Charles, his wife and 16 friends will be going on a 10 day ecotour to promote awareness of global warming.

They will use the A-319 jet pictured on the left (which could transport about 130 people if used commercially). Per various calculations, the carbon footprint will exceed 200 tons. Charles says this will be offset with carbon credits.

Once again, this is a test of belief. If Charles really, truly beliefs in carbon credits, then no hypocrisy.

The info for the article comes from a British newspaper.

I don't know how much per ton Charles paid. From this wikipedia article it seems it would be on the order of $20 to $50 per ton.

State University of Illinois and Their Plagiarism Policy

My brother Irwin alerted me to this interesting tidbit.

An State Illinois University (SIU) committee had recently completed an 18 months long inquiry into plagiarism at the SIU. A 17 page report was published (about 1 page for every month the committee deliberated). The report contained a definition of plagiarism that seems to have been copied, almost word for word from a definition published by Indiana University in 2005. This is per a report by a blogger who is taking an account from another source (with proper attribution).

On a fun note, various people on the SIU team that developed the policy were interviewed and no one was willing and able to say who did the plagiarism definition. One person on the team said it must just be coincidence but as the two definitions were read to her indicated that maybe it wasn't coincidence.

Assuming the body of the report says that plagiarizing is bad and not to be tolerated, this example of plagiarizing by the SIU committee (or the principle author of the study or the very shy author of the definition of plagiarizing), is a fairly obvious case of hypocrisy.

Is it serious?

I don't think so. First of all, very few people really care whether an SIU committee is committing hypocrisy (personally I presume people assume there is a certain amount of sleasiness in SIU). Second, whether SIU investigates and prevents further plagiarism is pretty much dependent on enforcement, not policy since everyone acknowledges that Universities shouldn't engage in plagiarism nor allow professors or students to do so.

However, the article is very good for chuckles. The image is a structure on the Carbondale, IL. campus called the "Paul and Virginia Fountain". Apparently the sculptor of this is unknown (like the author of the plagiarized definition).

UPDATE: At this same university, the Director of Career Services retired recently when it was revealed that his actual military service records did not match the awards and medals he had claimed the past 20 years.

Did Hypocrisy Sink the Nomination of Tom Daschle

There is a long post on Townhall by the son of Linda Chavez. Ms. Chavez was nominated by George W. Bush to be Labor Secretary in 2001. She had to withdraw her nomination because of criticism based on a tax issue.

The writer says that Daschle's vigorous opposition. Here is the writer's version:

"...Shortly after my mother Linda Chavez was nominated by President Bush to be Secretary of Labor in January of 2001, ABC News reported that she had given room and board to an undocumented woman from Guatemala. As Chavez stated at the time, she had provided the battered woman with emergency assistance due to the domestic abuse she was facing at the time, got her enrolled in English classes, and helped her find work with a neighbor. In her own defense, Chavez pointed to her long history of taking in those in need, and a long history of paying taxes on household help from legal citizens, as tax records confirmed.

But Chavez’s honest explanation was completely disregarded by Daschle. Less than a week after Bush announced the nomination, the then-Minority Leader declared he had “serious problems” with the illegal alien revelations and threatened to filibuster her nomination, a move that would have been the first in our nation’s history against a cabinet nominee...."

There are some problems that the writer glosses over. The undocumented woman did a lot of chores for the Chavez household while living there. These chores went beyond those of a 'guest'. So, there was some legitimate question of whether the woman was an 'employee'. Not withstanding the fact that the woman, herself, said that she did these chores by her own initiative and is a friend of the Chavez household.

Anyway, let's assume this is hypocrisy. The fact is that I don't think the 'hypocrisy' issue affected the Daschle nomination or the fact that he withdrew his nomination today. The issue was, I think, 1. 'you are supposed to pay taxes and the bigger a celebrity you are, the cleaner you should be'; and 2. Obama promised that he would bring people in who were not part of the system of lobbyists (Daschle was a consultant to lobbyists, not technically a lobbyist but it is a technical difference that doesn't ring very cleanly). In a sense, then, it was Obama's promises on ethics (a possible hypocrisy that I might get to analyze at some point) that sunk Daschle and not Daschle's hypocrisy (they are both in the image on the top).