Government & Politics

The Naked Mayor Principle?

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Chip Johnson

Chip  Johnson, the  married mayor of Hernando, Mississippi, sent a photograph of himself naked in the shower to his mistress, who then widely circulated it on the internet after the mayor discarded her like an old sock, or something.  (This is the essentially same plot the the British series “Happy Valley” employed last season, except that ex-lover so exposed was a police detective, not a mayor.)

Chip defended himself by explaining that he had sent the  shower selfie last year to an adult woman who was fully consenting in the relationship; in other words, this wasn’t a Weiner situation. Now he’s playing the victim, whining that it was “hurtful” to have his trust violated while he was violating his wife’s trust as well as the trust of his constituency, which trusted him not to make an ass of himself and embarrass them by emailing his naughty bits to his mistress.  Johnson told the local paper that he was seeking legal advice. Here’s some ethics advice:

Resign. Mayors should, at very least, be reasonably trusted not to have their Johnsons get displayed far and wide. There is no good reason for any mayor’s Johnson to be so displayed. If a mayor’s Johnson, like Mayor Johnson’s Johnson, is so displayed, it is proof positive that said mayor is an irresponsible fool with terrible judgment. Nobody who is an irresponsible fool with terrible judgment should be a mayor. Sure, the ex-mistress’s conduct was cruel and vindictive, but she’s not the mayor.

It’s really quite simple.

He’s toast, and deserves to be.

Let’s call it “The Naked Mayor Principle.”

[ You can review the related Naked Teacher Principle here...]

How Cognitive Dissonance Works: A Case Study

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Cognitive DissonanceJust last fall, the percentage of Americans identifying as Republicans and Democrats was essentially the same. Now, after months of the party being represented in the media by ugly, boorish, violent, dumb, name-calling Donald Trump, and the necessarily messy GOP debates that were the direct result of a major participant whose modus operandi consisted of mockery, lies and ad hominem attacks, this is the current split:

Party affiliation

Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms Retraction: Obama Did NOT A Flash Peace Sign In the Group Photo Of World Leaders

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

I’m retracting this post in record time, thanks in great part to commenter CB, who wrote,

Not an Obama fan here by any means BUT, you need to watch the video. He was NOT flashing the peace sign…he held up two fingers as he clearly said, ““We just have two more folks we’re waiting on.
There are so many serious things to be upset with Obama about….we don’t have to make stuff up. http://conservativefiringline.com/did-obama-flash-peace-sign-at-nuclear-summit/

I didn’t see the video, because I didn’t know there was one. The following sources are among those who intentionally misled its readers to take a cheap shot at the President: Instapundit, Drudge Report, Daily Mail, Times of Israel, NY Daily News, Biz Pac Review, and more conservative blogs and radio shows than I can count, largely because of Drudge and Instapundit.

I’m disgusted with all of them, and furious, in part at myself, that I was taken in. The “peace sign” was obviously a “two,” it lasted a second, and was not intended for the cameras.

As for me, I was taken in by my own confirmation bias, because bias makes us stupid. Obama is a narcissist, and this seemed like just a credible escalation of  behavior we already knew he was capable of engaging in, and if he did this in fact, I would not be surprised. It was obvious from the video, however, that he did NOT do it, and news media that reported otherwise were either malicious or incompetent.

I apologize to Ethics Alarms readers, and the President.

Now let’s see which sources set the record straight….

Barbra Gives An Ethics And Intelligence Test!

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Streisand tweet

Quick, now: what is Babs missing, other than the basic ethics principle that “Everybody does it” is not a justification or an excuse for unethical conduct?

Ethics Observations On The President’s Peace Sign Stunt

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

peace signclose-up peace sign

UPDATE: This post was based on intentionally distorted and misleading reporting, and is retracted. Ethics Alarms apologizes for being misled. 

Fifty-four world leaders joined President Barack Obama in a Washington, D.C.  two-day summit on nuclear weapons, including the threat of their use by terrorists. A they posed for a ‘team photo,’ Obama flashed the “peace sign.”

Observations:

1. The photo is a bias test. If someone has decided that Obama is hopeless incompetent who habitually confuses grandstanding with leadership, and who long ago checked out emotionally and intellectually and is less concerned than ever about “optics” as well as all those other annoying component of being a competent President, this shot confirms it all. If, on the other hand, one has already concluded that Obama can do no wrong, this is just more proof that he is “cool,” and the negative reaction to it (only from conservatives, of course) shows how he has been the victim of bigotry and unfair criticism.

2.  And if you are objective, or at least able  to still your confirmation bias? You ask yourself if you have ever, in all the times you have seen such photos, witnessed any world leader intentionally draw attention to himself  like the class clown in a junior high school graduation photo. The answer is no. Of course you haven’t, because world leaders, even the worst of them, understand that such conduct is disrespectful, undignified, trivializes such gatherings, is rude, irresponsible and unfair, and makes the leader behaving in such an inappropriate manner look like buffoon. Continue reading →

MSNBC Reporter Tony Dokoupil Explains Why His Profession Is Incompetent And Untrustworthy

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

softball_dirt_thumb

On his MSNBC show “Last Word,” host Lawrence O’Donnell expressed surprise that Wisconsin radio personality Charlie Sykes, who conducted a tough interview with Donald Trump this  week, was so much more aggressive that the softball  mainstream media interviewers.

His guest, MSNBC reporter Tony Dokoupil, who is assigned the 2016 campaign beat,  explained that Sykes had done a “one and done” style interview with Trump, which, he said,  journalists who want to have access to Trump over the long haul cannot afford to do.

“People who are on the beat, people who work for our network, they have to keep that relationship going for a long, long time,” Dokoupil said. “Charlie did not have that burden.”

O’Donnell was shocked—shocked!—at this statement. “Well, I don’t think the fact that you have to cover Donald Trump means that you have to then play softball with him so that you can guarantee he will speak to you another time,” he said. “Once the mission of the interview is to get the next interview with the same person, we know how soft that interview is going to be.”

This is hilarious coming from O’Donnell, a blazing partisan who has barely given a tough interview to a Democrat or progressive politician in his life. But I digress.

Dokoupil had committed the cardinal sin of speaking the truth, and it explains a lot. Steve Kroft had essentially made the same confession a couple of years ago when he said that President Obama was willing to do interviews for “60 Minutes” because he knew they would be “fair.” (That was also hilarious, because “fair” is a standard “60 Minutes” has never applied to politicians and leaders it wanted to exhibit in a harsh light. Sorry, digressing again.) The soft-ball approach certainly explains why so many reporters refuse to challenge Trump, and Trump’s boycott and attacks on Fox’s Megyn Kelly for daring to challenge him made explicit the conditions that Dokoupil felt were implied. When ratings are driven by which talking head show gets the falshiest guests, of course most interviewers avoid the “one and done” approach. Is it cowardly? Yes. Does it serve the public interests? No. Does it make lying, misrepresentation and an absence of integrity easy, painless and effective for Trump, Clinton, Obama, Cruz, Sanders, etc., etc.? Sure it does. It also undermines democracy, and is a disgraceful breach of journalism’s obligation to view the public, not its leaders and powerbrokers, as its only constituency.

Would an ethical, trustworthy professional allow this? No, but journalism hasn’t been ethical, trustworthy or professional for a very long time, if ever. For example, the Guardian reported German historian Harriet Scharnberg’s claims  this week that the AP made a mutually beneficial pact with the Hitler regime in order to ensure access to Germany throughout the Holocaust and World War II. The deal had the Associated Press promising to abide by  the Schriftleitergesetz, or editor’s law, agreeing not to publish anything that could be “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home.” .

I’m sure Lawrence O’Donnell is shocked at this, too.

North Carolina’s Conflicted, Disloyal, Unethical Attorney General, Roy Cooper

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments
A candidate masquerading as a lawyer...

A candidate masquerading as a lawyer…

Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s elected Attorney General, has so many conflicts of interest that he can’t credibly do his job in an ethical manner. Fortunately for him doing his job ethically seems to hold no interest for him.

To start with, he is an announced political opponent of the current Republican governor, Pat McCrory. This situation is not unique, but if an Attorney General is going to do his job ethically, for remember he is the state’s lawyer, he has to make an effort to put his political interests aside and not allow them to interfere with his duty to represent his client the state, whose voters have made McCrory its top decision-maker.

Cooper, however, isn’t making any such effort. House Bill 2, a state law passed last week that bars local governments from enacting nondiscrimination protections for the LGBT community, is anathema to Cooper’s constituency, so he is refusing to defend it in court against a federal lawsuit. If he were a private attorney whose beliefs rendered it impossible for him to represent his client, Cooper would have to resign. Since he is elected, he need not do that, but he can’t actively interfere with his client’s legal needs either. His proper course under the legal ethics rules governing all lawyers would be to find an outside counsel to do his job in this case, since he is incapable of doing it, and to defend the law.

Instead, Cooper is actively undermining his client’s legitimate objectives.  Cooper said in a news conference that the law is a “national embarrassment” and it “will set North Carolina’s economy back if we don’t repeal it.” That’s the candidate talking, not the state’s lawyer, and thus the state’s lawyer is engaged in a bright-line breach of loyalty by talking like that in public. His duty, and his only ethical option, is to shut up. He may not be able to support his client’s objectives, but he absolutely must not impede them.

Cooper has even gone beyond that ethical violation to a massive conflict of interest breach. Instead of defending McCrory, the Board of Governors and the others being sued in the federal lawsuit, Cooper has announced that he will defend the two LGBT people and the lesbian professor bringing the lawsuit against the state! Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On The Michelle Fields-Corey Lewandowski Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

trainwreck6

Michelle Fields, a stand-in reporter for Breitbart, gets manhandled at a Trump rally while trying to ask The Donald a question. She complains, the Trump organization attacks her, her Trumpized employers refuse to back her, and now battery charges have been filed in North Carolina against Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, whom Fields says grabbed and bruised her. Meanwhile, multiple members of the Breitbart staff, including website star Ben Shapiro and the reporter, have resigned.

What’s going on here, and why does it matter?

1. It matters because what should have been a minor episode has turned into a full-scale ethics train wreck, with the still-growing passenger list including Donald Trump, his campaign, Breitbart, Fox News, the justice system, Fields, Shapiro, the Washington Post, Piers Morgan, and Trump’s embarrassing supporters. Nothing has escalated into a nasty and destructive battles of wills, because Donald Trump creates a culture in which winning and never apologizing turns every dispute into ugly confrontation and warfare.

2. This is how Trump as President would and could start a real war. His entire philosophy precludes common sense and diplomacy. Just because an incident is trivial in substance doesn’t mean its implications can’t be significant, and this is an excellent example. Look at how it developed. Trump’s staff embraces the culture he has created and endorses—thuggishness, misogyny, a contempt for manners, a refusal to be gracious, insistence on winning above all, even when the benefits are dwarfed by the costs. A government and nation under Trump would do the same. A complaint over fishing rights or an imagined diplomatic gaffe would deteriorate and escalate, with President Trump shouting insults from the Oval Office. Continue reading →

Unethical Website Of The Month: “Vote Trump Get Dumped”

/ Jack Marshall / 123 Comments

 

votetrumpgetdumped

Ugh.

See, ladies, “Lysistrata” was a satire, and its charms and political wisdom have long escaped me anyway. Threatening to withhold sex to force men to vote for who you want is neither fair, smart or democratic, and is exactly as ethical as trading sex for votes, which is a particularly weird form of prostitution.

Today’s unethical website calls itself “Vote Trump Get Dumped,” and it argues…

Those who vote Trump should understand this: No sex. No dates. No chance.

To cast a vote for Trump is to agree with his sexist, perverted, demeaning, backwards, offensive treatment of women. Learn what’s at stake.

Join us by wielding your influence. Until Trump is defeated, we don’t date, sleep with, or canoodle with Trump supporters.

The Greeks did it. Women during the temperance movement did it. This is a tried and true method of getting men’s attention when they’re being dumb.

Actually the Greeks didn’t do it, it’s not “tried and true,” and it is itself dumb, as well as undemocratic. Citizens have the right to vote as they see fit, badly reasoned or not. Using any form of coercion to take away what should be a free choice is irresponsible, disrespectful and unfair, not to mention a breach of democratic principles and process.

This kind of divisive political tactic, punishing citizens for their political views, tears at the fabric of society and threatens human relationships and communities. It is akin to bars that only serve Republicans,  Facebook users who defriend Hillary supporters, and mayors who set out to punish states that pass laws they don’t agree with.

Our political choices, like our sexual choices, should not be subject to extortion and coercion. The Golden Rule applies.

__________________

Pointer: Fred

Hillary’s Smoking Gun Arrogance And Entitlement

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

Coronation-of-Queen-Hillary

Democrats asked for this when they decided to hand Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination rather than make her earn it. The DNC began by rigging the debates to expose Clinton, a gaffe-artist in the rarefied league of Joe Biden but less amusing, as little as possible. It got itself a bizarre, non-competitive opponent to provide nominal opposition, Bernie Sanders—too old, not a Democrat, abrasive, deluded—who cooperated by refusing to attack Clinton where she was vulnerable. He didn’t want to win, you see. Bernie Sanders just wanted to spout Socialist propaganda in the hopes of rotting the brains of the same impressionable young who still think Barack Obama is a leader who brought hope and change.

Oddly, the Democratic leadership had forgotten how our current unqualified, weak and hapless POTUS got elected: he’s President only because Hillary Clinton can’t beat anyone fair and square. She’s dislikable and untrustworthy, and the “vote for my sex organs” bit only goes so far.  Now her campaign is in trouble, and Sanders is threatening to make some super-delegates ( the way Democrats rig their nominating process, allowing them to ridicule Republicans for looking for ways to block Donald Trump) change their plans. He and his supporters see blood in the water, and are finally sharpening their attacks on Hillary.

What??? Actually attacking one’s opponent? This cannot be borne! Thus the Hillary campaign has told Sanders that he must “change his tone” or the Pre-Anointed Nominee won’t deign to debate with him, so there. “Let’s see if he goes back to the kind of tone he said he was going to set early on. If he does that, then we’ll talk about debates,” Hillary’s spokesperson told CNN. Continue reading →