Tag Archives: Sean Hannity

The Damage Incompetent Pundits Do: Criminal Defense Misconceptions

Myths that won’t die: guilty defendants can’t testify that they are innocent (they can) and lawyers can’t defend criminals they know are guilty (they must.) Continue reading

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Filed under Government & Politics, Journalism & Media, Law & Law Enforcement, Professions, U.S. Society

Ethics Dunce: Mercedes Colwin

Fox legal analyst Mercedes Colwin just spectacularly and irresponsibly misinformed Sean Hannity’s radio audience, and added to the widespread and incorrect belief that it is somehow unethical for an attorney to represent a client the attorney knows is guilty. (It is not.) Compounding her reckless mistake, she noted that she had been “a judge,” thus giving apparent credibility to her utterly erroneous characterization of how criminal defense works. This was also misleading: Colwin was an administrative law judge, which has nothing whatsoever to do with criminal justice. Continue reading

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Filed under Arts & Entertainment, Comment of the Day, Ethics Dunces, Gender and Sex, Journalism & Media, Law & Law Enforcement, Popular Culture, Professions, U.S. Society

Newt Gingrich: Ethics Victim…Ethics Miscreant…Walking, Talking Ethics Lesson

I’m glad Newt Gingrich is in the presidential race, however foolishly and futilely. He is perhaps the perfect illustration of how a potential political leader’s private personal conduct is not only relevant to assessing his fitness to lead, but predictive of it. Continue reading

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Filed under Gender and Sex, Government & Politics, History, Journalism & Media, Leadership, Popular Culture, U.S. Society

The Uncommon Common Dilemma

It is unusual to encounter a situation where there is no course that doesn’t violate some legitimate ethical principle. The dilemma involving rapper Common’s controversial invitation to the White House is one of them. None of the options are strictly ethical, and this has led advocates both for and against his inclusion in Michelle Obama’s poetry event, “An Evening of Poetry at the White House,” to behave unethically themselves. Let’s see: what comes closest to being ethical conduct of the possible outcomes? Continue reading

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Filed under Arts & Entertainment, Gender and Sex, Government & Politics, Journalism & Media, Law & Law Enforcement, Leadership, Popular Culture, Professions, Race, U.S. Society

Death Photo Ethics

Ethics obligates us to care about treating others, even those who hate us, better than they would treat us. If there is no national security benefit to showing the world Osama bin Laden with a bullet in his head, then the decision is matter of ethics alone, and the question is whether the United States embraces our values, or those of its enemies. Continue reading

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Filed under Around the World, Etiquette and manners, Government & Politics, History, Journalism & Media, Literature, Religion and Philosophy, U.S. Society, War and the Military

Calm Down, Hannity! Superman’s Decision is Super-Ethical.

All in all, Superman’s decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship is wholly patriotic, diplomatically useful, ethical, and practically meaningless. Continue reading

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Filed under Around the World, Arts & Entertainment, Citizenship, Government & Politics, Journalism & Media, Law & Law Enforcement, Popular Culture, U.S. Society, War and the Military

Lara Logan’s Cairo Ordeal Starts An Ethics Train Wreck

What happened to “60 Minutes” Correspondent Laura Logan, was such an unambiguous example of brutality and criminal conduct that you wouldn’t think it could raise any ethical controversies. But the already nasty incident has metastasized into a full-fledged Ethics Train Wreck, with both the Left and the Right taking turns disgracing themselves. Continue reading

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Filed under Around the World, Arts & Entertainment, Etiquette and manners, Gender and Sex, Government & Politics, Journalism & Media, Professions, Religion and Philosophy, The Internet, U.S. Society

Spin or Fairness? Fox News and “the public option”

Media watchdog Howard Kurtz’s latest column for “The Daily Beast” illustrates how tricky achieving both objective and accurate journalism can be difficult, and sometimes impossible. Continue reading

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Filed under Government & Politics, Health and Medicine, Journalism & Media

Jesus, Ants, Art, and Republican Abuse of Power

The difference between Islamic bullies demanding that Comedy Central censor South Park for imagined insults to Muslims or risk violent reprisals, and Congressional bullies ordering the Smithsonian to censor an art exhibit or face death by de-funding is insignificant. Continue reading

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Filed under Arts & Entertainment, Citizenship, Government & Politics, Journalism & Media, Leadership, Popular Culture, Religion and Philosophy, Research and Scholarship, U.S. Society

Deficit Reduction Ethics: We’re All Selfish Dunces, and We’ll Be Sorry

If Americans were responsible, honest, fair and genuinely concerned about America’s future prosperity and strength, we would just buckle down take deep breaths, and agree to make the sacrifices necessary to put the nation back on the road to fiscal health. But we won’t, will we? Continue reading

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Filed under Citizenship, Ethics Dunces, Finance, Government & Politics, Leadership, U.S. Society