Ethics Quotes

Unethical Quote of the Week: DC Radio Talk Show Host Chris Plante

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

“(MSNBC host) Chris Hayes is like (MSNBC host) Rachel Maddow, but with a smaller penis.”

—-WMAL syndicated conservative radio talk show host Chris Plante, riffing on the anti-Fox MSNBC’s new star, Chris Hayes.

Gee, Chris, do you REALLY want to emulate Bill Maher?

As someone who often talks extemporaneously for a living, and who has slammed both legs up to the hip into my mouth more than once, I am genuinely sympathetic to the perils faced by radio and TV talk show hosts who have to be edgy, insightful and witty for three hours a day without a script, knowing that words, once out of their mouths, are irretrievable, and can lead to career meltdowns with the speed of Chernobyl. It’s a tough job that is akin to walking a high wire over a pit of crocodiles, and I usually have great sympathy for those who fall.

But there is no excuse for this. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Washington Sports Writer Sally Jenkins

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

“Overreaching by government is far more harmful than any of the alleged offenses. It has poured more poison into the system than is contained in any needle.”

—-Sally Jenkins, writing in the Washington Post sports pages about the Roger Clemens prosecution.

Elsewhere in her column, Jenkins writes:

“Someone in authority at the Justice Department should have said to the federal investigators who pursued Clemens since 2007 on perjury charges, “You don’t have the evidence that can win a conviction.” The government never had a case, and knew it didn’t have a case (or at least should have), and brought the case anyway.”

Bringing a case when a prosecutor doesn’t have sufficient evidence is the epitome of unethical prosecution, and the Clemens case certainly qualifies. I can’t write much about this now, because I am preparing to give an ethics seminar to Washington D.C. government attorneys about legal ethics in government practice. I always find the government attorneys to be extraordinarily informed regarding ethical standards, and to have excellent ethical instincts. I will be talking about the Clemens case, and the Ted Stevens prosecution that went so horribly wrong, and the Fast and Furious investigation, in which a Federal Prosecutor announced his intention to take the Fifth Amendment if he was called before Congress. I will be talking about a lot of things.

There is obviously a problem.

___________________________

Spark: Ron Sarro

Source: Washington Post

Graphic: The Cell Phone Junkie

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

Unethical Quote of the Month: The Producers of HBO’s “Game of Thrones”

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

“We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can’t afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush. In the DVD commentary, we mentioned this, though we should not have. We meant no disrespect to the former President and apologize if anything we said or did suggested otherwise.”

—– David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the producers of HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” explaining how a replica of former President George W. Bush’s head came to be placed on a pike in one episode. HBO had previously apologized for the display as “in very bad taste.”

Stay classy, Hollywood.

I detest public lies that the liars know nobody in their right mind will believe, as they are insulting, dishonest (obviously) and degrade the culture by sending the message that lying is just a game., and being a liar is nothing to be ashamed of. I also detest fake forced apologies, in which  individuals have been ordered by some authority to issue mea culpas or else, and the result is  apologies so insincere that they border on parody.

This statement by the producers of “Game of Thrones,” then, is especially objectionable, because it meets both criteria. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Wellesley High School Teacher David McCullough

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

“Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion–and those who will follow them.  And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself.  The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special. Because everyone is.”

———-Wellesley High School Teacher David McCullough, in his commencement speech to graduating seniors. McCullough annoyed some parents by basing his speech on the fact that students today are encouraged to believe that they are more “special” than they are, leading to selfishness, narcissism and delusion.

Yes, the parents apparently wanted something more conventionally inspirational, like a speech telling their children how special they are.

The speech, in text and in video, has gone viral on the web; obviously it struck a chord that needed to be struck. I wasn’t going to post about it, I must confess; I think it McCullough’s speech is being over-praised. It is disorganized. It includes false information (50% of all marriages do not end in divorce, but that fake, unsubstantiated statistic  is harder to kill than the Hydra), and I don’t think teachers should be disseminating bad facts. It contradicts itself: “Don’t bother with work you don’t believe in” is dangerous and confounding advice for narcissists who one is trying to convince to think of the needs of others. And throbs with the smug contrariness of someone who set out to be controversial. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Jennifer Porter Gore, Rep. Keith Ellison’s Communications Director

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“As with all Twitter accounts a re-tweet is not an endorsement.  The congressman removed the tweet because it appeared to endorse use of a nasty term, which is not what we wanted.”

—-Rep. Keith Ellison’s (D-Minn) Communications Director, Jennifer Porter Gore, making a ridiculous and incredible defense of a re-tweet by the Congressman on Twitter, sending out a message from a supporter referring to Mitt Romney as ” a heartless douchebag.” Ellison has been among the most vocal of Congressional advocates for civility in public and political discourse.

Various media noted that the crude and uncivil tweet was an odd thing for the Congressman to adopt as his own, since he had repeatedly spoken on the need for civility, called for a tolerance pledge, and strongly supported the civility pledge promoted by the Jewish Council on Public Affairs. Yet Ellison, or someone whom he entrusted to run a Twitter account in his name, sent the “heartless douchebag” tweet around the Twittersphere.  When reporters started asking uncomfortable questions using words like “hypocritical”  Ellison’s office took the tweet down.  Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week, Trayvon Martin Ethics Train Wreck Division: Dr. Boyce Watkins

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

“Sybrina’s words have opened the door for millions of people to understand when George Zimmerman is let off the hook with either an acquittal or a plea bargain for a lesser charge.”

—Syracuse University Professor Boyce Watkins, in a blog post complaining that the comments of Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother stating that she thought the shooting of her son was “an accident” were devastating to the chances of convicting George Zimmerman of second degree murder.

Unmasked at last!

I must confess, I love this quote and the post that generated it. I love it because a race-baiting scholar who later defenders cannot credibly claim didn’t write what he meant, has confirmed what I have argued in multiple posts, in the course of also validating my assessment that Fulton’s comment was itself unethical, though not for the reasons Dr. Watkins objects to it.

In the rest of his post, Watkins confirms my assessment of Fulton’s irresponsible and despicable willingness to stir up hate toward Zimmerman. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Former Fox Mole Joe Moto

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“I am a weasel, a traitor, a sell-out and every bad word you can throw at me… but as of today, I am free, and I am ready to tell my story, which I wasn’t able to fully do for the previous 36 hours.”

–—Joe Moto, upon getting his walking papers at Fox News. Moto, a producer on the O’Reilly show, had been sending anti-Fox posts to the gossipy and ethics-free website Gawker, denigrating the company that was paying his salary. His work as the “Fox Mole” didn’t last long, as he was discovered and fired after only two undercover posts.

Joe Moto, while at Fox News

Joe Moto is a fick.* He can’t justify his conduct, which is as low as it gets. In his statement above, which is part of his first post-Fox column, he acknowledges that he has no ethical argument left to him for his disloyal, cowardly breach of an employer’s trust, but informs the world that he intends to cash in anyway. I will say this clearly: anyone who ever hires this guy for any job, from working in TV to yard work, is insane. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Prof. Paul Horwitz

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“I can think of a number of posts about the ACA from legal scholars last week that were clearly and openly offered as advocacy and did a fine job of it. And I can think of others that were clearly not offered as advocacy at all, and said useful and interesting things about the oral arguments…But I do believe that some posts last week traded on the authority of their authors, made overconfident or disingenuous claims about the state of current law and the strength or weakness of opposing arguments, and did so for strategic reasons. I see those reasons as more inculpatory than exculpatory. I don’t see the minimal requirements for scholarly integrity that I offered as changing because of the medium, or because of the importance and currency of the case.”

Hey, Professor! We assume you're smarter than we are: don't play games with our trust!

—-University of Alabama Law Professor Paul Horwitz, writing about the confounding number of liberal law professors and scholars who wrote internet posts professing that the constitutionality of Obamacare’s individual mandate was obvious and undeniable, and that the provision’s Supreme Court approval was assured. As Ethics Alarms did regarding other commentators, Prof. Horwitz suggests that some of the commentary was designed as spin, or to use his term, to “shape the narrative.” He argues that in cases where the scholar was deliberately over-stating the case for constitutionality, this constituted a breach of integrity and honesty. Hie professor-speak for this is “inculpatory.” He means that it was unethical.

Which, of course, it was. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: President Obama (Sigh!)

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

“Ultimately I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

—President Obama speaking in the White House Rose Garden about the Supreme Court’s deliberations on the constitutionality of Obamacare.

Obama made John Marshall roll over in his grave. We Marshalls just hate that,,,

This is the kind of presidential dishonesty that drives me bonkers, I must confess. It manages to deceive and misinform. It is dependent on the ignorance of  the public, so it is also condescending, disrespectful, and cynical, in addition to being an intentional  lie.

Not a lie, you say? Perhaps a mistake? Sorry, no dice: Obama was advertised as a former constitutional law expert and a Harvard Law School whiz. He can’t claim now that he’s really a babe in the woods when it comes to the Law of the Land and judicial history.

Unprecedented? The power of the Court to overturn unconstitutional acts of Congress was established by precedent, when Chief Justice John Marshall—love that name—led the court to invalidate the Judiciary Act of 1789. Is Obama playing games with “democratically-elected Congress,” since the Senate wasn’t elected directly until 1912, with the passage of the 17th Amendment. I suppose so…if challenged, he can say that he is still right, because all of Congress wasn’t elected “democratically” in 1789. Of course, few Americans know that, so the statement qualifies as deceit. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: Earl Scruggs, Banjo-picker (1924-2012)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

“If you don’t let things develop, it’s like keeping something in a bag and not letting it out to fly”

—-Bluegrass innovator and legend Earl Scruggs, who died yesterday, in an interview he gave in 2000. He was talking specifically about creating new sounds and kinds of music, but his larger point applies to everything in life, and is an ethical one.

Earl Scruggs almost single-handedly changed the banjo from an instrument associated with clowns and minstrel shows to a vital element in American music. His single-hand was his right hand, as he perfected a three-fingered playing style that gave the banjo as much range and depth as a guitar, cello or violin. With his long-time partner Lester Flatt, he injected bluegrass music into the American mainstream with his music for the film “Bonnie and Clyde,” and, of course, TV’s “The Beverley Hillbillies.”

What Earl Scruggs recognized was that just as the fact that “everybody does it” doesn’t make something right, the reverse is also true. The fact that “everybody” hasn’t been doing something, or even that it has never been done or even considered, doesn’t automatically make it wrong. Ethics doesn’t impose rules to freeze societal standards and values, but to give us systems to evaluate whether standards of conduct and values need adjustment or reconsideration. Often we hear the verdict “Now that’s just wrong!” to condemn something that may not be wrong at all, but just surprising, non-traditional and strange to those who never imagined such a thing. Too often that confusion of wrong and different inhibits creativity, innovation, and change for the better. That’s why innovation and condemnation are frequently linked, and why boldness and courage are prerequisites for positive change. Continue reading →