Government & Politics

Patrick B. Pexton: Worst Ombudsman Ever

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Interestingly, you can find Patrick B. Pexton's picture in the dictionary under both "bad ombudsman" and "bad hair."

Well, at least we know that the Washington Post’s new ombudsman, Patrick B. Pexton (who apparently escaped from a Charles Dickens novel) is a dud. That’s one good thing that came out of his column about his employer’s unethical coverage of the “Niggerhead” rock, otherwise known as “Let’s smear that scary Republican, Rick Perry, so he’ll never come close to being President.” Other than that useful but unfortunate fact, however, Pexton’s piece represents the most incompetent and ethically clueless analysis by a media ombudsman that I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of them.

Pexton, who is supposed to present an objective and critical response to ethical issues in Post reporting and editing, instead adopts the stance of its partisan defender. Wrong. That’s not his job. His job is to keep his paper honest and to reinforce stringent journalistic ethical standards. Continue reading →

Unemployment Check Ethics: “The Ethicist” Gets It Right

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

I regularly check the competition, and “The Ethicist,” Ariel Kaminer, has been solid lately. This past week, she avoided falling into a trap that I am certain her predecessor, Randy Cohen, would have charged into.

The questioner asked Kaminer whether it was unethical “for a relatively wealthy person” to receive unemployment checks, even if he or she met  the requirements. Moreover, “Is the answer different in times like the present, when government resources are extremely strained?” Continue reading →

Why Lawrence O’Donnell’s Interview With Herman Cain Wasn’t Unethical Journalism

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Lawrence O’Donnell’s unconscionable roast of GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain —-no fair journalist would call it an “interview”—made me realize that broadcast journalism ethics have fractured to the point where it is unfair to apply the same ethics standards to different networks and programs. My initial reaction to seeing O’Donnell’s over-the-top performance was that it represented a new low in broadcast journalism interview ethics. Now I think that is unrealistic and unfair. O’Donnell’s conduct was what MSNBC’s audiences want to see, and what critics should expect to see. Herman Cain, the target in this case, consented to the abuse. Where’s the unethical journalism? There was no journalism. Continue reading →

“Hmmmm!”: Conflicts of Interest, Appearance of Impropriety, the National Parks Service

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

David Uberuaga, real estate whiz

David Uberuaga, then superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park sold his Ashford, Washington home to the owner of Rainier Mountaineering, Inc. for three times the property’s assessed value, while Uberuaga was charged with oversight of the concessionaire. Later, Park Service Director Jon Jarvis, at one time Uberuaga’s immediate boss, saw that Uberuaga was appointed the superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park. This is especially interesting in view of the fact that Jarvis’s older brother, Destry Jarvis, has been a lobbyist on behalf of motorized river runners on the Colorado River, which runs through that park.

Hmmmm.

Do you agree with that? “Hmmmm”? Because in government ethics, “Hmmmm” is enough to indicate that the appearance of impropriety threshold has been crossed. The public isn’t supposed to think, “Hmmmm.” In this case, however, how could they not? To prevent “Hmmmm,” Jarvis needed to remove himself from any decision affecting a National Park that is being lobbied by his brother. To prevent “Hmmmm,” Uberuaga can’t have business transactions, especially mysteriously enriching ones, with a company that seeks contracts with a park that he manages. Continue reading →

Ethics Confusion in Ken Burns’ “Prohibition”

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I enjoy all of Ken Burns’ documentary series, and I am grateful for them. They do a better job of teaching history than the schools, and they are always thought-provoking and, of course, beautifully executed. At the same time, I am aware of the limitations in Burns’ approach, beginning with his genre. Documentaries are inherently misleading works, more misleading in the hands of some, like Michael More, than others. The sifting of which material to use, how to balance issues, choices of photographs and film footage and even the inflections of voice betrayed by narrators (To his credit, Burns has all of his narrators deliver their script in the exact same measured and deliberately-paced tones; I found myself wondering how many times Burns forced “Prohibition” narrator Peter Coyote to listen to previous Burns stand-ins David McCullough and John Chancellor in “The Civil War” and “Baseball” until he sounded as much like their clone as they sounded like identical twins) unavoidably slant the final product, sometimes unintentionally, but usually with a motive. To the extent that viewers realize this, it is an ethical medium, but for most, especially those unfamiliar with the subject matter and with no independent knowledge to draw on, it is not.“Prohibition,” Burns’ latest PBS series that debuted last week, has a more obtrusive agenda supported with more dubious logic than his previous documentaries, reminding me, at least, that his historical conclusions should always be taken with a measure of skepticism. Continue reading →

Attorney General Holder, Fast and Furious, and Congressional Perjury

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

"Oh, NOW I see where the confusion is...AG Holder thought the Congressman was asking about when he saw the MOVIE called 'The Fast and Furious.' It's an honest mistake. The Attorney General loves his Netflix!"

It is looking increasingly likely that Attorney General Holder lied to Congress on May 2, 2011, when he was asked by House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa about when he knew about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Fast and Furious gun-running fiasco. In this he is following a grand tradition among U.S. Attorney Generals: the last one, Bush crony Alberto Gonzalez, almost certainly lied under oath to Congress too.

Fast and Furious was a botched gunrunning enforcement operation in which illegal guns that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives intentionally allowed to be smuggled into Mexico ended up being used to kill an Immigration Customs Enforcement agent and a U.S. border patrol guard.  Holder was called before Issa’s committee in a typical “what did the top guy know and when did he know it?” inquiry. In response to the latter part of that question, Holder told the Committee that he was “not sure of the exact date, but I probably learned about Fast and Furious over the last few weeks.”

CBS and Fox News have uncovered a series of e-mails and memos that show unequivocally that this was not true. Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Week: GMU School of Law Dean Daniel Polsby

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

George would be proud.

“Student organizations are allocated budget by the Student Bar Association in order to allow them, among other things, to bring speakers to the law school.  Neither the law school nor the university can be taken to endorse such speakers or what they say.  Law school administration is not consulted about these invitations, nor should we be.  Sometimes speakers are invited who are known to espouse controversial points of view.  So be it.  So long as they are here, they are free to say whatever is on their mind within the bounds of law.   They cannot be silenced and they will not be.

“Just as speakers are free to speak, protesters are free to protest.  They must do so in a place and in a manner that respects the rights of speakers to speak and listeners to listen, and that is in all other ways consistent with the educational mission of the university.  Student organizations which hold contrary points of view have every right to schedule their own programs with their own speakers, and these speakers’ rights will be protected in just the same way.

“The law school will not exercise editorial control over the words of speakers invited by student organizations, nor will we take responsibility for them, nor will we endorse or condemn them.  There has to be a place in the world where controversial ideas and points of view are aired out and given space.  This is that place.”

——  Daniel D. Polsby,  Dean of George Mason University Law School, responding to calls from the Council on American-Islamic Relations for the Law School to disinvite activist Nonie Darwish, who had accepted an invitation from the campus Federalist Society and the Jewish Law Students Association to speak on campus.  Continue reading →

When Unethical Meets Stupid

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Cuation! Moron at Work.

Pilots flying multi-million dollar aircraft to Navy Air Station Oceana say that beams coming from laser pointers are blinding them as they make their approach. The Navy says there has been a sharp increase in the number of laser sightings within the last 18 months. “You’re getting ready to land–you’re getting ready to go through a number of steps configuring the airplane to touchdown. In the two-seaters, there aren’t any sticks in the back. So if you lose the ability to fly it in proximity to the ground, it gets pretty dangerous,” says Webb. In short, the laser pointers are risking military planes and lives. Continue reading →

Hank Williams, Jr.: Victim of a Political Correctness Mugging

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Wait---Hank Williams Jr. thinks Obama is like Jennifer Aniston?

On the Fox News morning couch-fest, country singer Hank Williams, Jr. had this exchange with the hosts:

HANK WILLIAMS: Remember the golf game?

    STEVE DOOCY: Boehner?

    HANK WILLIAMS: That was one of the biggest political mistakes ever.

    CO-HOSTS: Why?

    HANK WILLIAMS: That turned a lot of people off. You know, watching, you know, it just didn’t go over.

    GRETCHEN CARLSON: You mean when John Boehner played golf with President Obama?

    HANK WILLIAMS: Oh, yeah! Yeah. And Biden and Kasich, yeah. Uh-huh.

    GRETCHEN CARLSON: What did you not like about it? It seems to be a really pivotal moment for you.

    HANK WILLIAMS: Come on. Come on. It would be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu, OK?

It wasn’t OK, apparently. Headlines sprouted up like weeds claiming that Williams had “compared Obama to Hitler,” or “said Obama was like Hitler.” So because ESPN figured much of its audience would think that Hank Williams compared the President to Adolf Hitler, since the media was reporting his words that way, ESPN, that paragon of courage, fired Williams as the voice of Monday Night Football. No longer will his song introduce the festivities. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “America’s Untouchables, Continued…”

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Commenter Shelly Stow has the Comment of the Day, with some useful calculations inspired by the post “America’s Untouchables, Continued…”:

“Every time I read about the creation of “child-safe” zones, I just shake my head. According to the latest statistics from the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Division of the DOJ about who child molesters are, for victims age 6 and below, 58.7% are family members, 39.7% family acquaintances, and 1.8% strangers (and not all of the stranger group are registered offenders; in fact, few are); for victims age 7-11: 50.5% family; 46.7% acquaintances; 2.7% strangers; and for victims age 12-17: 21.7% family; 72.9% acquaintances; 5.7% strangers–keeping in mind that only a tiny percentage of the stranger groups are registered offenders.

“Based on this, the only “zone” that would keep children out of the reach of potential molesters and therefore safe from sexual abuse is a zone that would exclude their parents, siblings, grandparents, entire extended family, baby sitters, neighbors, teachers, playmates’ parents, siblings…..everyone in their lives.”