Ethics and public policy

To get a sense of how the whoremongering of pro-family, religious conservative Sen. David Vitter, R-La, might play out among evangelical voters, Newsweek interviewed Mike Cromartie on "The Vitter Effect."

I know Mike Cromartie and I like him and respect much of the work he's managed to produce under very difficult circumstances. Those very difficult circumstances, though, are of his own choosing: Cromartie is the vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

To put it starkly: if you're concerned about ethics and public policy, then you should not be working for the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

The center is an odd place. It describes itself as "Washington, D.C.'s premier institute dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy," and clearly states its intention "to influence policymakers." For all that policy talk, though, most of the actual work done there tends to be fairly detached and academic. Mike Cromartie does a big share of that actual work, much of which involves organizing forums and soliciting and editing papers. Most of these papers come from serious and thoughtful conservative scholars in the First Things vein, although the center has also inexcusably provided a platform for clownish corporate hirelings like E. Calvin Beisner. The published collections of these papers, edited by Cromartie, are mostly a respectable contribution to the conversation.

But none of that work is the real reason that the Ethics and Public Policy Center exists. A much smaller, leaner organization could easily produce a similar volume of papers and panel discussions, and most of the people on the center's payroll have little to do with that work. Or, to put it another way, the center's actual work has little to do with the purpose of its payroll. Cromartie is like the pasta chef at a Mafia-front restaurant -- the quality of his cooking doesn't really matter because serving food isn't the real reason the restaurant exists.

The real purpose of the EPPC is to provide an institutional home base for Republican officials in transition between jobs. Wondering what laughed-out-of-office former senator Rick Santorum is up to these days? He's a "senior fellow" at EPPC. Worried about Peter Wehner's career now that he's leaving his post as deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Strategic Intiatives? Don't be, he's fine. He's joining EPPC as a senior fellow next month -- for a while, at least, these revolving-door fellowships aren't designed to be permanent. This is Scaife-funded welfare for unemployed pols and pundits in transition.

The most egregious such welfare hiring by the center -- and the point at which its name became nothing more than a bitter, hypocritical joke -- was when it hired Elliott Abrams as its president in 1996. Abrams spent the next six years in this rehab assignment, apparently hoping that having the word "ethics" in his job title would somehow erase the fact of his involvement in one of the most unethical, illegal and reckless foreign policy fiascoes in U.S. history: the Iran-Contra affair. That episode takes its name from the two groups receiving clandestine military support from the Reagan administration, in opposition to the administration's avowed stance of never dealing with terrorists, in opposition to U.S. law, and in opposition to common sense.

Abrams faced multiple felony charges for his role in Iran-Contra but cut a deal, pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress in order to escape time in prison. That left him a free man -- free to continue aggressively undermining America's national security and national interests by endorsing the PNAC blueprint for what eventually became the very worst unethical, reckless and counterproductive foreign policy fiasco in U.S. history: the ad-libbed invasion of Iraq. Abrams left his rehab post at EPPC to take a more active role in that effort to destroy America's prestige and influence in the world, and since 2002 he has served in the Bush administration, helping to ensure that this Very Bad Idea has been made even worse through its incompetent execution.

As I said above, I like Cromartie and I respect much of the work he's done, but I can't fathom what made him stick around EPPC after the hiring of Abrams in 1996. I work for a newspaper. If our publisher announced tomorrow that Judy Miller and Jayson Blair were hired as our new EIC and assistant, I would resign. I don't have any other job lined up, and I don't know how I'd pay the rent, but I would have no choice. You can't work for an organization that depends on certain standards if that organization is going to hire people whose whole career is anathema to those standards.

All of which, I suppose, makes Mike the perfect guy to address Newsweek's questions about Sen. Vitter. His experience at EPPC has made him something of an expert on the political future of disgraced politicians. And years of working for the Scaife-subsidized center also provides him with a certain expertise for the other side of this story -- an empathetic understanding of Deborah Jean Palfrey's point of view.

Comments

[the opoponax]

So basically, what you're saying is that the EPPC will be filing W-4 forms on Vitter's behalf come September?

[bc]

Isn't it interesting that it doesn't matter what you have done, but whether you've "repented" and been forgiven? Look at Bush - of course he had a wild youth into his 40s, but he's been forgiven, so it's bad manners to talk about it now. Same with Falwell, who was racist when it was okay to be racist, then was forgiven when being racist was rather inconvenient. If the liberals are ever going to win nationwide, we need to have some big sinners who are forgiven. Naaaw - don't think liberals get forgiveness.

[Professor M]

There's something wrong -- and I mean "wrong" in the "doublespeak making useful words meaningless" sense -- of the creep of terms used to describe the application or enforcement of religious doctrine. Saying "we would like government to act in accord with our doctrines" would be honest, but unpopular; so, instead, it became "we support morality in public policy." "Morality," of course, usually means something a bit different -- but there was enough fuzziness in the use of the term that it wasn't really worth objecting to the usage. Besides, we already had a term to describe application of basic principles to public policy based on issues like consequences, respect for autonomy, etc. -- "ethics." To claim that "ethics" meant "obedience to doctrine" would have been ridiculous. At least, so I would have thought -- now, as if deciding that everybody knows that "morality," when used in Washington, is code for "enforcement of Christian doctrines," we see Christian organizations supporting "ethics." I think at this point the ethicists will have to start either pushing back or looking for another term which will, for awhile, mean what we've been trying to talk about for so long. Expecting organizations devoted to pushing doctrine on government to be honest would be a bit utopian, I think.

[RedEnsign]

You missed the obvious connection... what Vitter and Cromartie have in common is that Vitter likes his prostitutes.... and Cromartie is one.

[Consumer Unit 5012]

You missed the obvious connection... what Vitter and Cromartie have in common is that Vitter likes his prostitutes.... and Cromartie is one.

That's a terrible insult-by-association to all the hard-working women in the World's Oldest Profession. We need a new, even more derogatory term for these political shills.

[bad Jim]

Agreed. Likening this crew to respectable sex workers is a lamentable slur. When was the last time a brothel invaded and occupied another country, or looted a pension plan? There's fucking and there's fucking over.

[Bugmaster]

From the interview:

Any movement that goes around promoting family values and then doesn’t live by them personally is certainly hypocritical. But one can also confess and apologize for the sin of hypocrisy. There are hypocrites on the conservative and liberal sides of the aisle.

Awesome ! So, I can proclaim myself to be the paragon of virtue, then sin all I want, then repent of my sins, and it's all good, because hypocrisy itself is also a repentable sin. Neat.

There’s a kind of stunned silence at first. Someone said, “This is an embarrassment. How can a movement recover?” I said, “You act as if something like this has never happened.”

I understand that this is how things work in the Evangelical world of infinite repentance loops, but, in the real world, closing your eyes and singing "la la la" is no substitute for honesty.

Ironically, I personally don't even care whether politicians visit prostitutes or not (though I would prefer it if prostitutes were unionized). It's the lies that I can't stand.

[Andrew Brown]

On a point of pedantry, Vitter is not a whoremonger. A fishmonger sells fish; a warmonger sells wars; a whoremonger is a pimp. Vitter is at the other end of the transaction.

Thanks for explaining where Elliot Abrams ended up. You couldn't make these things up.

[iflurry]

I'm not a regular commenter, but I was beginning to wonder if I was the only human being who still remembered what the Iran-Contra fiasco was.

Gee, I wish I was a Republican Cowboy President so that people would conveniently forget that I conveniently forgot selling weapons to Iranian terrorists.

[MikeJ]

iflurry, I also remember Iran-Contra. It's especially funny to think about when the people who are currently beating the drums for war with Iran try to say that we've actually already been at war with Iran since 1979. Most of the people making that stupid argument would not like the conclusions you must draw about the loyalty of the Reagan administration to the United States.

"It describes itself as 'Washington, D.C.'s premier institute dedicated to applying the Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy,' and clearly states its intention 'to influence policymakers'...The real purpose of the EPPC is to provide an institutional home base for Republican officials in transition between jobs. "

Fred, you mean the Center's mission statement isn't political doublespeak for "dedicated to turning America into a fundamentalist theocracy"?

Or do you suspect that the Center is recruiting and training those GOP officials to be nascent theocrats?

[cjmr's husband]

Isn't it interesting that it doesn't matter what you have done, but whether you've "repented" and been forgiven?

The forgiveness bit I understand; what bugs me is the people for whom the magnitude of the sin is so important. It seems sometimes that being Forgiven for, say, draft dodging alcoholism and drug abuse, means you're a better person than someone who has merely been Forgiven smoking pot in Vietnam.

(goes to check the Tivo for the next episode of Whoremonger my Automobile)

[chaos_engineer]

I was just recently watching a documentary called Cromartie High School. Most of the students are juvenile delinquents, so I'm wondering if Mike Cromartie might be connected somehow.

[Barry]

Fred, if this center served as a dishonest means of subsidizing/paying off GOP officials, then Cromartie was already a dishonest person. If 'ethics' means 'right-wing political doctrine', with nothing politically useful too distasteful to endorse, then then Cromartie was already a dishonest person.

All that's happened is that something struck you *emotionally* as dishonest; intellectually you already knew that the place was a fraud.

[Drak Pope]

When was the last time a brothel invaded and occupied another country, or looted a pension plan? There's fucking and there's fucking over.

The only reason they don't is because they can't. Brothels very often lack military power because they, like any other business, exist only to make money by providing a service. Don't fool yourself for a second that this makes them benign. Pimps very often treat their prostitutes extremely poorly and facilitate such crimes as human trafficking and slavery purely for profit. Yes, they don't invade countries and loot pension plans but it's not because they're nice people.

[J]

Fred:
As I said above, I like Cromartie and I respect much of the work he's done, but I can't fathom what made him stick around EPPC after the hiring of Abrams in 1996.

You can't, huh? Well, I can. Let me help you to understand: Religion is evil.

[Ecks]

J, you realize you are saying that to a deeply religious man? Sensitive much?

And anyway, saying that religion is evil is like saying that wheels are evil. True they've both facilitated a lot of nastiness in their time, but also a lot of goodness. Either way it's all down to what is done with them, and waving self righteous fingers about it doesn't get us to good places any faster.

[Bugmaster]

Wheels are evil. I mean, have you ever really looked at them ? Sitting there, spinning, never letting you examine any one spot too close... Why are the wheels so shifty ? What are they hiding ? Hmmm ? mumble mumble wheels mumble grumble illuminati mumble...

[J]

Either way it's all down to what is done with them...

Am I free to do nothing with them [religions] whatsoever?

[Ecks]

Yes. I hereby grant you absolute freedom to do nothing whatsoever with religion. And, freedom also if you are willing to put up with it, from wheels. Nevermore must you go to a church, sit in a car, or let a young Jehovas witness into your house. Now go forth and enjoy your liberty.

[Jeff]

Brothels very often lack military power because they, like any other business, exist only to make money by providing a service. Don't fool yourself for a second that this makes them benign. Pimps very often treat their prostitutes extremely poorly and facilitate such crimes as human trafficking and slavery purely for profit.

Not all brothels have pimps. In fact, in places where prostitition is legal, they tend not to need them, since standard law enforcement does what is needed to protect the workers, and the workers tend to be independent contractors. This is my understanding of the situation in Nevada and Amsterdam, at least.

Nevermore must you go to a church, sit in a car, or let a young Jehovas witness into your house.

Or Jehovah's Unicyclists, either

[Drak Pope]

Not all brothels have pimps. In fact, in places where prostitition is legal, they tend not to need them, since standard law enforcement does what is needed to protect the workers, and the workers tend to be independent contractors. This is my understanding of the situation in Nevada and Amsterdam, at least.

You're right; I should have qualified it to refer to brothels that are controlled by pimps, which as you say exist largely in places without legalization of prostitutions and the subsequent protections entailed by that. Anyway, my point remains valid. The sex trade is not inherently more benign than politics on basis of military power alone.

[Jeff]

Anyway, my point remains valid. The sex trade is not inherently more benign than politics on basis of military power alone.

Actually, you've rendered your point invalid. Sex workers need armed power where the sex trade is not legal (otherwise, the San Fernando valley would have the largest private army in the world). Politics (and law, for that matter) needs armed power.

[Drak Pope]

Actually, you've rendered your point invalid. Sex workers need armed power where the sex trade is not legal (otherwise, the San Fernando valley would have the largest private army in the world). Politics (and law, for that matter) needs armed power.

What are you talking about? My point was that pimps can be murderous and destructive even though they can't invade other countries like politicians can, so implying that brothel-owners (pimps) can't be as malicious as politicians because of the former's lack of a military doesn't really hold up. I don't understand how what I said invalidates this.

[Reynard]

If our publisher announced tomorrow that Judy Miller and Jayson Blair were hired as our new EIC and assistant, I would resign. I don't have any other job lined up, and I don't know how I'd pay the rent, but I would have no choice.

You could always go to work for Weekly World News. Oh, wait... No you can't...

[Reynard]

If our publisher announced tomorrow that Judy Miller and Jayson Blair were hired as our new EIC and assistant, I would resign. I don't have any other job lined up, and I don't know how I'd pay the rent, but I would have no choice.

You could always go to work for Weekly World News. Oh, wait... No you can't...

[MichaelR]

Aw, man, Weekly World News is going away? This is a travesty. I'll miss their third-rate sci-fi plot "stories," their advice columnist who could just reply "quit being such a baby, you freak" and nobody would notice, their editorialist which was a pastiche of every ignorant shit-kicking racist sexist homophobic redneck cliche out there, their "startling scientific discoveries" we've known about for decades...

Farewell, WWN. I'll miss you. :(

Think the final issue will be valuable some day?