Little lies to get at big truths

The National Press Club audience was listening Monday to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spokesperson announce the Chamber’s sudden decision to reverse course and support climate change legislation. Suddenly another spokesperson for the Chamber burst into the room and announced that he was the real Chamber spokesperson, and that the whole press conference was a fraud.

The fraud was perpetrated by the Yes Men, a group who, in the words of their leader, “tell little lies to get at bigger truths.” The leader, Igor Vamos, appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Meeting pretending to be Mike Bonanno, and regaled host Dylan Ratigan with glories of past frauds, like impersonating Dow Chemical representatives on BBC and announcing that Dow would provide $12 billion compensation to victims of the tragic gas leak at Bhopal, India, which killed nearly 4000 people in 1984. Dow stock plummeted.

Pretty cute, eh?

The Yes Men believe that business is evil and must be brought “in line with our [i.e., the Yes Men’s] moral and ethical sensibilities.” The New York Times praised their movie: “It is great fun to watch them do their dirty work.”

You don’t have to like the Chamber to believe that lying to advance one’s “moral and ethical sensibilities” is unethical. And it shouldn’t be great fun to watch.

Ethical worsts of the week

Jimmy Carter told NBC News, "I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American." When people are saying hateful things (Obama’s Hitler-like, communist, destroying our America) condemn them. But calling them racist is unjustified, forfeits the moral high ground, leads otherwise reasonable people to come to their defense, and stirs up racial animosity.

Lane Kiffin, football coach of the University of Tennessee, wins this week’s bad sportsmanship prize. After the Florida Gators beat his UT Volunteers, the Florida coach said that several of his players had been suffering with the flu. Kiffen told the press, "I guess we'll wait and after we're not excited about a performance, we'll tell you everybody was sick."

Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona says that “Republicans believe all Americans should have access to quality health care and that we must find ways to reduce health care costs.” His first example: root out Medicare and Medicaid fraud. The Senate plan calls for doing just that, to the tune of $500 billion. But when Democrats go after Medicare fraud, Kyl demagogues seniors, saying “This would ultimately lead to shortages, rationing and the elimination of private-plan choices—something our seniors rightly fear.”

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) wants to weasel out of the White House deal with PhRMA, the pharmaceutical lobbyist. The Administration cut the deal, which gave some concessions to the industry in exchange for their agreement to cut drug prices and support health care reform. Now Nelson and other Dems on the Finance committee are saying, we’ll take what you offered but we’ll take back what you were offered in exchange. Backing away from the deal is very popular: Nelson was quickly joined by Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Schumer (D-NY), and Stabenow (D-MI).

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) joined up with two other Republicans and three Democratic senators to work out a health care bill. When the political temperature rose he decided to appease his base by “discovering” that the bill he had been collaborating on provided for death panels. Moreover it contained a mandate for individuals to buy insurance, which he could not support, even though he had long campaigned for just such a mandate.