History

Obama, the Bomber, and the Dangers of Deceit

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I live in the Washington,D.C. area, and I often say that deceit is the official language here. Deceit is an artful form of lying in which literally truthful statements are made in a manner, tone and context designed to deceive others into believing something that is not true, by playing on their assumptions, hopes or trust. Like any other lie, it allows the liar to gain tangible benefits, but with less risk than with a normal lie.  If a deceitful statement is unmasked after an individual has relied on it, the originator of the deceit  can and often does blame the duped listener, who “misunderstood” or “jumped to conclusions.” That’s the special upside of deceit.

The downside of deceit is that it is the calling card of especially slippery people, the preferred device of the verbally adept and the unconscionably manipulative. Effective deceit takes work and talent; show me someone who can be deceitful easily, and I will show you someone whom neither of us should trust.

That is why this statement by President Obama from last week is so discouraging, and perhaps, a tipping point in his relationship to the American people: Continue reading →

Daniel Schorr’s Ethical Legacy

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

It was interesting, though a little jarring, to read and hear the outpouring of admiration for the late CBS and NPR journalist Daniel Schorr, who died last week at the age of 93, even as the same sources were decrying the biases of Fox News. For Daniel Schorr was the herald of ideologically slanted journalism, though he never admitted it and was notable for his self-congratulatory dedication to what he called journalistic ethics. His legacy is what we have now: self-righteous journalists who refuse to separate fact from opinion, and whose definition of “fair and balanced” is “expose the bad guys—that is, those who we think are the bad guys.”

Some of the odes to Schorr’s career themselves defy any reasonable definition of objective reporting. During his 25 years at NPR, Schorr comfortably settled into reliably pro-liberal, pro-Democrat reporting, calling, for example, the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore, “a judicial coup” by “the Gang of Five, philosophically led by archconservative Antonin Scalia.”

“Some critics of Schorr and NPR felt his analysis veered into opinion — that he had a profoundly liberal take on the world that became more evident over time,” said NPR in its obituary of Schorr.

Gee…How could they think such a thing? Continue reading →

Free Speech or Theft? The Law and Ethics of Stolen Valor

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

The U.S. District Court in Colorado ruling in the case of  US v. Strandloff, has found the “Stolen Valor Act,” 18 U.S.C. § 704(b) & (d), to be an unconstitutional infringement of free speech.  Rick Strandloff represented himself as a wounded decorated Iraq War veteran in order to rally support for veterans and opposition to the war. The original Stolen Valor Act of 2005 criminalized the wearing of military medals an individual was never awarded; later, it was expanded to included the crime of falsely saying or writing that one has been given military honors for valor. The Act says, in part, that it is a crime to…

…falsely represent [oneself], verbally or in writing, to have been awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States, any of the service medals or badges awarded to the members of such forces, the ribbon, button, or rosette of any such badge, decoration, or medal, or any colorable imitation of such item …

Deciding an issue like this inevitably comes down to both law and ethics. Not all speech is protected by the First Amendment, and deciding how many kinds of speech we can sensibly and reasonably prohibit requires a court and a culture to think about just how bad—how wrong–certain kinds of speech may be, based on their actual and potential harm. Continue reading →

Al Gore, Bill Cosby and the Ethics of Flawed Messengers

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

We can wait until the whole sordid mess plays out, but as someone who has spent a lot of time researching and training managers about sexual harassment, it is all but certain that Al Gore’s reputation is a goner. One accusation of sexual harassment can be and often is a false alarm. When more allegations of the same type begin to surface after one accuser has broken the dam, however, it is a sure sign that the accused is a serial harasser. The National Enquirer, which has a nose for sleaze (see: John Edwards) is reporting that two more masseuses in two different locales have reported in-room encounters with Gore that echo that of the Portland masseuse whose complaint about Gore was first stifled by her environmentalist friends, and later by the Portland police. This news puts in a new perspective Gore’s unseemly defenses of Bill Clinton’s conduct when Al was Veep, and may even begin to solve the mystery of why the “Love Story” Gores ended in divorce.  Al, in other words, probably really is a “crazed sex poodle.”

Will this development greatly damage his ability to exercise influence in the climates change debate? Of course it will. Continue reading →

Note to Anti-Defamation League: Stick To Dafamation

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Everybody who watches baseball on TV knows that Fox color man Tim McCarver talks too much. He’s smart, sometimes perceptive, but his opinions during a broadcast constitute the sports equivalent of Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound.” Last week, commenting on a Yankee Stadium game that was preceded by the team’s annual “Old Timer’s Day” parade of superannuated Yankee greats, McCarver chose to express his outrage at what he saw as the Yankees’ banishment of former manager Joe Torre (now managing the L.A. Dodgers after an acrimonious departure from New York, followed by a tell-all book) to relative obscurity: Continue reading →

The Siena Research Institute’s Lousy Independence Day Gift: Misleading, Biased and Incompetent Presidential Rankings

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

The Siena College Research Institute persuaded over 200 presidential scholars to participate in a survey designed to rank America’s forty-three Chief Executives. There is great deal to be leaned from the resulting list that the Institute proudly released on July 1; unfortunately, very few of the lessons have anything to do with the men on it.

The list shows us that:

  • A survey is only as good as its design
  • Historians who call themselves “presidential scholars,” working together, could do no better in their supposed area of expertise than to arrive at a ranking that would get most 7th Graders a C in junior high school History, raising serious questions about how history is taught in our universities, but perhaps explaining why Americans choose to be so ignorant of their nation’s past.
  • Historians are, as a group, biased toward liberal causes, against conservatives, and in favor of people who are like them.
  • They are unable to recognize their biases, even when a list like this one makes them stunningly obvious.

Lists are mostly for fun and to start arguments. When one purports to make historical judgments, however, and the individuals doing the judging are supposed to be experts, there is still a responsibility to try to do the task fairly, competently, and responsibly. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

“He once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan, what does that mean? I’ll tell you what it means. He was a country boy from the hills and hollows from West Virginia. He was trying to get elected.”

—Former President Bill Clinton speaking fondly—and dishonestly— of  the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV).

Bill Clinton has never had much understanding of  the principle of integrity. To him, wanting to get elected is justification enough for joining a violently racist organization that you don’t believe in, and giving support to a movement that you find offensive is a reasonable moral compromise to make in the pursuit of power. But how do we know that Sen. Byrd didn’t reject the Klan when the group’s cross burnings and lynchings became unfashionable in order to stay elected, while secretly sympathizing with them? Well, we don’t—and the facts support this interpretation more than Clinton’s. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Dr. Jeremy Krock

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

All over America, there are people who are doing wonderful, generous, kind and important things, not for recognition or personal profit, but because something needs to be done to set things right, and nobody else will do it. The only way most of us learn about these ethics heroes is if some enterprising reporter discovers their stories, and brings them to the public’s attention. For every one we hear about, there are probably dozens that remain in obscurity.

One of those Ethics Heroes I have just learned about is Dr. Jeremy Krock, an anesthesiologist by trade, who began the Negro Leagues Grave Marker Project seven years ago. His self-appointed mission is to find the neglected burial places of players from the old Negro baseball leagues, and give them each a grave marker that identifies them and their place in baseball history. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Geraldo Rivera

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Geraldo Rivera has declared that Rolling Stone Magazine is a journalistic miscreant for not treating comments that weren’t expressly “on the record” as “off the record,” and reporting the derogatory comments of now-deposed Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staff regarding  President Obama, Vice-President Biden, and others.  The upcoming article’s contents, he reasons, do no good and much bad, and are irresponsible…”a terrible thing.”

Some news media reporting in times of war are indeed irresponsible and unethical, as when the New York Times has published the details of intelligence operations. This is not such a case. Continue reading →

Easy Ethics Call: Gen. McCrystal Must Go

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Ignore, for the time being, the fact that several other high-ranking Obama officials richly deserve to be fired for egregious failings of honesty and competence. Gen. McChrystal, the commander in charge of  U.S. combat in Afghanistan, has followed in the unfortunate footsteps of General Douglas McArthur, who openly criticized President Harry Truman and lost his command as a result. McChrystal has to go too. Continue reading →