No one ever accused Joe Biden of having ethical standards or being a man of character, but still.

“We’re going to be judged whether or not we restored the integrity and competency of this government,” he said on his very first day in office, just before swearing in his appointees via Zoom call. “I need your help badly.”

Biden was, of course, taking a swipe at his predecessor, Donald Trump. “We have to restore the soul of this country,” he said. But talk is cheap, and the inconvenient truth is that Scranton Joe hasn’t lived up to his words. As the Washington Examiner reports:

President Joe Biden pledged to lead “the most ethically rigorous administration in history,” but his administration has excused top officials from federal ethics regulations at a far greater rate than his immediate predecessor, a watchdog group reported Wednesday.

Biden’s ethics pledge and federal ethics laws prohibit officials from engaging in matters involving their former employers for at least one year after being sworn in, but those regulations can be waived if the interests of the federal government outweigh possible ethical concerns. Biden’s administration has granted at least 50 such waivers during his first 14 months in office, compared to the 73 ethics waivers granted during the first 32 months of the Trump administration, according to the report by Protect the Public’s Trust.

Indeed, he’s handing out waivers like ice cream cones.

Biden also pledged to be transparent, and White House spokesman Michael Gwin said his ethics policy is “historically bold and expansive” and will “ensure that his White House and administration maintain the highest ethical standards.”

Uh-huh. Then why is it that the terms of at least 19 of the ethics waivers he’s granted to administration officials haven’t been made public? As the Examiner continues: “Among the recipients of such ‘secret’ waivers include Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who disclosed in her Certification of Ethics Agreement Compliance that she received authorization to be involved in matters involving CNN and the University of California, but the terms of that authorization have not been disclosed,” according to Protect the Public’s Trust, an ethics watchdog group.

Granholm came under much-deserved fire in May for selling her stock in Proterra, an electric vehicle manufacturer on whose board she served, just prior to joining the Biden administration. She turned a sweet $1.6 million profit on the sale, but she didn’t report it until a month after Biden promoted Proterra during a virtual tour of the company’s South Carolina manufacturing facility.

More recently, Granholm has joined Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to schlep electric vehicles as a way for regular people to sidestep rising gas prices. What the ethically challenged trio uniformly fails to disclose, however, is that EVs cost an average of $56,437. That might be chump change for Beltway bureaucrats, but not for the rest of us.

Biden’s shortcomings aren’t limited to ethics, though. On that first day in office, he also announced a zero-tolerance policy for those in his administration who treat others disrespectfully. “If you’re ever working with me,” he said, “and I hear you treated another colleague with disrespect, talked down to someone, I promise you I will fire you on the spot. On the spot. No if [sic], ands, or buts. Everybody, everybody, is entritled [sic] to be teated [sic] with decency and dignity. That’s been missing in a big way the last four years.”

And how did that promise work out? Less than a month into his presidency, he failed to fire his misogynistic deputy press secretary, T.J. Ducklo. Then, months later, an internal White House investigation found that Dr. Eric Lander, director of Biden’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, had been disrespectful to colleagues in front of others. But Biden kept Lander on until he eventually resigned.

And, of course, Biden himself called Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy a “stupid son of a b**ch” after he had the temerity to ask a question about inflation.

If only Joe would’ve lived up to his word and fired himself on the spot. On the spot.

Oh, wait. Never mind.