Ryan GrimVerified account

so your criticism would apply equally to his earning money from writing a book about his former public service?

why are you specifically seeking out new threads in which to defend naked, shameless buckraking

because we ask people to serve a term of years, and if they do it honorably they ought to be free to pursue their own interests again

I don't think there's anything wonderful about Obama's decision here, but I also don't think he deserves a bunch of barnwolves up his ass

because the way norms like "don't cash in on your public service" are maintained is by being dicks to people who violate them

It is totally legal to stand on the left side of the escalator and block everybody who wants to walk. 100% legal! Also legal to call it out

If no one called it out until lady/black guy did it? Still wrong...but you get the pushback, yes?

Of course

And this is bad because...? The current potus is literally privatizing his public service WHILE HE'S IN OFFICE. Where's TYT outrage there?

So was Eisenhower writing "Crusade in Europe" about his experience in WWII "privatizing a public good"? Grant's memoirs?

Ryan can defend his own position but no one I know has a problem with the books because writing a book for money resembles a noncorrupt deal

How is it different than writing and delivering a speech? The performance? If he reads for the audio book is that corrupt?

Books are accessible to everyone and contribute to the public good. Wall street speeches only benefit a few extremely wealthy people

And there's sound economic reasons for publishers to pay big fees for a book deal, whereas no real reason to pay $400,000 for a speech

If I sold 500 tickets for $1000 each, making a cool $100k profit, wouldn't that be a sound economic reason to pay $400k for a speech?

What if the speech were later disseminated publicly? Doesn't that contribute to the public good?