{"id":174,"date":"2009-09-15T10:54:54","date_gmt":"2009-09-15T10:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/if-obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass-off-the-record-does-it-make-a-sound.html"},"modified":"2009-09-15T10:54:54","modified_gmt":"2009-09-15T10:54:54","slug":"if-obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass-off-the-record-does-it-make-a-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/if-obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass-off-the-record-does-it-make-a-sound.html","title":{"rendered":"If Obama Calls Kanye A Jackass Off The Record, Does It Make A Sound?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It does if Terry Moran (Moron?) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/click\/stories\/0909\/did_obama_call_kanye_a_jackass.html\">tweets<\/a> it.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>So, the civility debate rages (ironically) on. And as everyone&#8217;s buzzing, the president&#8217;s now caught up in it, having remarked off the record in a CNBC interview that he thought Kanye West was a jackass after Kanye&#8217;s Taylor Swift-boating stunt at the VMAs.&nbsp;ABC reporter Terry Moran tweeted the comment indiscreetly, then deleted it, and is now finding himself and his network among the legions of apologists cropping up after they blurt out inappropriate remarks in various media outlets.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Question: is President Obama also now to be lumped among the uncivil cretins at whom we wag shocked moral fingers? Or, was his comment, whether you agree with it or not, acceptable because it was never meant to enter the public discourse?&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Off the record ought to mean <i>off the record<\/i>, no? So, is it a crime to mutter your opinion, just a minor rookie mistake on the part of the prez, or a real moral flop on the part of reporter Moran?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Or is it the technology we ought to blame for our loose lips? With Twitter making indiscretion almost <i>too<\/i> easy, blurting out thoughts without, well, thought, seems to be becoming all too common.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b><i>What do you think? Who&#8217;s the jackass here? (And don&#8217;t say me, OK?!)<\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<div><b><i><br \/><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<div><b><i><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: normal;font-weight: normal\"><strong>Subscribe to receive updates from Everyday Ethics or&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EverydayEthics\">follow us on&nbsp;Twitter<\/a>!<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b><i><br \/><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It does if Terry Moran (Moron?) tweets it. So, the civility debate rages (ironically) on. And as everyone&#8217;s buzzing, the president&#8217;s now caught up in it, having remarked off the record in a CNBC interview that he thought Kanye West was a jackass after Kanye&#8217;s Taylor Swift-boating stunt at the VMAs.&nbsp;ABC reporter Terry Moran tweeted&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,28,36,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-hillary-fields","category-current-events","category-media-ethics","category-news","category-political-ethics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>If Obama Calls Kanye A Jackass Off The Record, Does It Make A Sound? - Everyday Ethics<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/if-obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass-off-the-record-does-it-make-a-sound.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If Obama Calls Kanye A Jackass Off The Record, Does It Make A Sound? - Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It does if Terry Moran (Moron?) tweets it. So, the civility debate rages (ironically) on. And as everyone&#8217;s buzzing, the president&#8217;s now caught up in it, having remarked off the record in a CNBC interview that he thought Kanye West was a jackass after Kanye&#8217;s Taylor Swift-boating stunt at the VMAs.&nbsp;ABC reporter Terry Moran tweeted&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/if-obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass-off-the-record-does-it-make-a-sound.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Everyday Ethics\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-15T10:54:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hfields\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"If Obama Calls Kanye A Jackass Off The Record, Does It Make A Sound? - Everyday Ethics","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/if-obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass-off-the-record-does-it-make-a-sound.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"If Obama Calls Kanye A Jackass Off The Record, Does It Make A Sound? - Everyday Ethics","og_description":"It does if Terry Moran (Moron?) tweets it. So, the civility debate rages (ironically) on. And as everyone&#8217;s buzzing, the president&#8217;s now caught up in it, having remarked off the record in a CNBC interview that he thought Kanye West was a jackass after Kanye&#8217;s Taylor Swift-boating stunt at the VMAs.&nbsp;ABC reporter Terry Moran tweeted&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/if-obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass-off-the-record-does-it-make-a-sound.html","og_site_name":"Everyday Ethics","article_published_time":"2009-09-15T10:54:54+00:00","author":"hfields","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/if-obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass-off-the-record-does-it-make-a-sound.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/if-obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass-off-the-record-does-it-make-a-sound.html","name":"If Obama Calls Kanye A Jackass Off The Record, Does It Make A Sound? - Everyday Ethics","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-09-15T10:54:54+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-15T10:54:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0c57c1fc9d645425d6205fa4f058146f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/if-obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass-off-the-record-does-it-make-a-sound.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/if-obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass-off-the-record-does-it-make-a-sound.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/2009\/09\/if-obama-calls-kanye-a-jackass-off-the-record-does-it-make-a-sound.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"If Obama Calls Kanye A Jackass Off The Record, Does It Make A Sound?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/","name":"Everyday Ethics","description":"Moral Ethics Blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/0c57c1fc9d645425d6205fa4f058146f","name":"hfields","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/77b\/77bd98aa35acd21a3a7a209185ad8b6cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/77b\/77bd98aa35acd21a3a7a209185ad8b6cx96.jpg","caption":"hfields"},"description":"Hillary Fields is a born-and-bred New Yorker, brought up on the not-so-mean streets of Manhattan's Upper East Side. She attended St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she studied classics and philosophy, and then respectfully declined to spend the rest of her life in an ivory tower. Instead, she turned to the life of a writer and editor, penning three romance novels published by St. Martin's Press and contributing features to such periodicals as Cosmopolitan magazine. Her fascination with the moral dilemmas that crop up in everyday life--and the many intriguing ways people handle them--has always colored her writings. Now, that interest is leading her to take the discussion online; where, hopefully, the addition of reader feedback will bring these quotidian quandaries--and their potential solutions--vibrantly to life. When she's not plumbing the ethical mysteries of humanity, her passions include cooking (especially baking), origami, kittens, reading, watching really bad television and playing online scrabble. (And no, she doesn't cheat... much.)","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/author\/hfields"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/everydayethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}