Month: March 2012

A Question For President Obama and His Campaign: Why Lie?

/ Jack Marshall / 48 Comments

I have an iron-clad rule for all Presidents, regardless of party, ideology and political philosophy: Don’t use deception as a tool of governance. I have a related rule for Presidents who get elected by pledging honesty and transparency in government: Especially you!

The President’s health care law, a.k.a. “Obamacare,” whatever its merits, was probably the most dishonestly sold, packaged and passed major law in U.S. history (if someone has another candidate, please submit it.) Not all of the dishonesty was due to President Obama’s personal efforts–he didn’t tell its House and Senate not to bother to read the various versions of the bill, for example, or submit to the CBO patently manipulated assumptions to ensure its projection of a net budget surplus from the law immediately prior to its passage, assumptions that were substantially revised later. He is the one who pledged over and over again that if you liked your current coverage, nothing the law did would stop you from keeping it, a promise that seemed dubious at the time and that has in fact proven to be either mistaken or deliberately misleading.

Still…the law was passed. Utilitarian justifications and rationalizations for various tactics and maneuvers to get it passed are unnecessary now. So why does the President and his campaign team feel that they have to skirt the truth in their public relations and re-election efforts?

The Tom Hanks-narrated Obama campaign film “The Road We’ve Traveled” has already been charged with truth fouls by objective analysts on many points, including Obamacare. In the assessment of FactCheck.org, the best and most objective of the various political fact-checking websites, the film dissembles regarding, among other things... Continue reading →

“Do The Vicious And Stupid Thing”—A Spike Lee Production

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Ethics Dunce Extraordinaire: Director Spike Lee

The film director, writer, social critic, sports fan and incurable hot-head has apparently tweeted—twice— the home address of George Zimmerman, who is the man who shot Trayvon Martin.

Meanwhile, the New Black Panthers have placed a cash bounty on “capturing” Zimmerman, and he is also receiving death threats.

If someone uses the Lee-tweeted address to go and kill Zimmerman—certainly within the realm of possibility given the over-heated, emotional and irresponsible rhetoric over Martin’s death—Lee  won’t be prosecuted. But his conduct is vicious and criminal in spirit.

Well, Twitter has wrecked plenty of lives; it’s just a matter of time before it ends one. Spike Lee is just the man to make it happen.

There is no excuse for this.

 

Proposing “The Bachmann-Plouffe Rule”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

My new rule could stop this from happening to me in the very near future, and perhaps you as well!

I am ready to bestow my ever-lasting loyalty and admiration, not to mention a lifetime Ethics Hero award and maybe even a monthly stipend upon the first broadcast journalist who pledges to employ henceforward what I will call “The Bachmann-Plouffe Rule.”  ABC’s George Stephanopoulos emphatically did NOT employ the rule this morning in his back-to-back interviews of White House advisor David Plouffe and Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, inspiring me 1) to name the rule and 2) throw my newspaper at the TV screen. Twice.

I don’t have the transcript, but I can fairly describe the exchanges. Plouffe was routinely mouthing Obama re-election talking points, when Stephanopoulos pressed him on the issue of gay marriage, specifically regarding the fact that the Democrats are talking about having a national campaign platform plank that explicitly endorses it, while the President has notably declined to give a clear endorsement of same-sex marriage. George asked why Obama doesn’t just declare that he supports it, and, if he does not do so, whether his ambivalence will place him at odds with his party’s position.

Plouffe didn’t answer the question. Continue reading →

Obama, Trayvon Martin, Biases and Kansas City Burning

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

In Kansas City, Missouri, a 13-year-old East High School student was walking home after the end of his daily classes when he was grabbed by two older teens just as he reached his front porch. They pinned his arms behind his back,  poured gasoline on him, and set him on fire. The victim of the attack was rushed to an emergency room, where he was treated and released. Doctors fear possible damage to his lungs and eyes, but outside of losing his eyebrows and some hair, he only suffered first degree burns.

The boy is white; his attackers were black. They allegedly said, as they were lighting him aflame, “You get what you deserve, white boy.”

This frightening incident occurred on March 2. I only recently learned of it, because the news media didn’t treat it as a national story. Though the boy’s attackers have not been found, no activists are demanding that the police chief resign. There have been no marches or protests, and students aren’t walking out of Kansas City schools. Nobody, as far as I can determine, has claimed that this is just the tip of a lurking race iceberg, and that it shows the racial hate of blacks toward whites that is hidden by the media and the culture. Most of all, the President of the United States did not say , just to give a wild, hypothetical example… Continue reading →

More Public School Political Indoctrination

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Here is what’s scary to me: a teacher considers giving his middle school students the assignment of doing opposition research on the Republican presidential candidates, and no ethics alarms go off for him at all. Fairness? Objectivity? Abuse of power? Prudence? Bias?

Not a ding.

Michael Denman assigned his 8th grade students at Liberty Middle School in Fairfax County the task of researching the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the four presidential hopefuls looking to challenge President Obama and forward them to the Obama campaign. The students were told to research the backgrounds and positions of each of the candidates ,find their “weaknesses,” and  to prepare strategy papers to exploit them in the campaign. Then they were told to find a contact in the Obama campaign to send them to. Continue reading →

Fairness and the Transgendered Miss Universe Contestant

/ Jack Marshall / 128 Comments

Changing mores, technology, laws and science create the damnedest ethical problems.

Jenna: too masculine for Miss Universe?

The Miss Universe Canada organizers have kicked contestant Jenna Talackova out of their beauty pageant because she was born male.  Fair? Well, the qualifications for the pageant require that an entrant be a “naturally born female.” I’m sure that was seen as a clear and reasonable restriction when it was devised, but let a few lawyers at it today. Jenna says she was always female, but just trapped in a male body. She was also “naturally born.” Hmmmm.

[UPDATE: (4/10/12) On April 5, the pageant announced that Talackova would be allowed to compete after all, and announced a rules change that will allow transgendered competitors next year.]

Jenna falsely stated on her entrant forms that she was “born female.” Since she has told officials that this wasn’t true, she is obviously no lawyer, but really: why shouldn’t a transexual be able to compete? The issue should be whether she’s a female now, right? The pageant might as well require that all contestants must be born gorgeous. Miss Universe Canada could, I suppose, duck the problem by requiring that no entrant can have appearance-enhancing surgery. Of course, then the pageant would have no contestants at all. Continue reading →

Depressing Fun From CREW: “Are You More Ethical Than A Member of Congress?”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

And yet, it once was even worse...

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have a neat little feature on their website, an interactive survey entitled, “Are You More Ethical Than A Member of Congress?” It is well done, pointed, educational, and, if you hadn’t already figured out that the ethics on Capital Hill (and the character of the elected officials displaying them is beyond redemption, really depressing.

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that if you aren’t more ethical than a member of Congress, you are probably either in jail, or should be.

You can take the survey here.

 

Newt Gingrich, Creep

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

I'm not posting any more Newt Gingrich photos, so here's a Mastiff puppy, in honor of National Puppy Day. And good night, Patience (my late, beloved Mastiff), wherever you are!

I have made myself abundantly clear clear about my assessment of New Gingrich’s ethical instincts, so yet another example of his unethical creepiness is hardly necessary. I will keep this brief:

Bill Clinton, when confronted by a Truther at a public appearance, gave an indignant lecture to the questioner about unjust smears on the patriotism and integrity of American leaders.

John McCain, facing a women in a 2008 campaign stop who declared that Barack Obama was a Muslim, told her she was wrong, saying, “No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign’s all about. He’s not, thank you,”

Today, when an audience member at a Newt campaign appearance in Louisiana told him he believes President Obama is a Muslim and a student of Saul Alinsky, and continued,  “And I believe that it’s his policy to bring this country to its knees and ruin the United States of America. Your comment?” Newt replied that:

  • Obama was a “radical.”
  • “If the price of that is that we’re poorer and we have fewer jobs and that we have less energy, that’s fine with him. It’s a price he’ll pay.”
  • “I agree with you about Alinsky.”
  •  I think he’s driven by a radicalism to remake America and he doesn’t frankly care what level of pain it costs the rest of us.”

He never addressed the Muslim canard, later telling Gretta Van Susteran that “I don’t have an obligation to go around and correct every single voter about every single topic.”

Interesting which statement Newt chose not to correct.

Creep.

The Principle President Obama Cannot—or Will Not— Grasp

/ Jack Marshall / 57 Comments

President Obama's learning curve.

As I observed the uproar building over the neighborhood watch murder of Trayvon Martin, the Sanford, Florida teenager fatally shot by a 911 caller who found him “suspicious,” I found myself hoping against hope that President Obama could muster the restraint—restraint that he has too often failed to exercise in the past—to stay out of a local law enforcement matter that is far from resolved. Presidents are not talk-show hosts, and their comments carry excessive power and influence. Picking and choosing among the myriad Americans who suffer misfortune, tragedy and injustice to render support and sympathy is a fool’s game, and an irresponsible act by a national leader. President Obama is no fool, but in this area his flat learning curve has been shocking. He injected himself into the Cambridge police’s altercation with a cranky law professor before he knew all the facts; he rendered a verdict on a coal mine cave-in before fault had been established; he injected himself into a local controversy over the location of a mosque, and he even entered the dispute over Rush Limbaugh’s insults to a law student. Every one of these abuses of his office and influence attracted appropriate criticism (though not nearly enough of it) and caused other problems as well. I thought that maybe…maybe…the President finally might have figured out what virtually every other President understood by the time he had been inaugurated.

Nope! Continue reading →

Dr. Z’s Tips to Avoid Unethical Influences in the Workplace and in Life

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The wise and provocative "Dr. Z" (on the left)

I’m giving ethics seminars to lawyers and accountants today at a non-profit conference in Washington, D.C. While I’m gone, I thought you might want to think about one of the topics I’ll be talking about, the problem of avoiding unethical influences and being co-opted by an unethical culture. What follows are some of the principles advocated by psychologist  Philip Zimbardo, “Dr. Z” to his students, who is best known for devising the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment (it was even made into a movie), that demonstrated to a frightening degree how ethical individuals could engage in horrendous acts when placed in the right (or wrong) environment. Zimbardo has studied, taught and written about this phenomenon extensively, and I find his advice bracing and wise, as well as fodder for debate and discussion. Here it is: Continue reading →