The last shoe dropped in the sordid John Edwards tale, with his admission that he was indeed the father of his mistress’s infant daughter, as many suspected. This comes months after he emphatically and repeatedly denied this fact to the media, in the course of admitting that he indeed did have an affair with the child’s mother, Rielle Hunter, after months of denying that. His efforts at covering up all of this ultimately incorporated his terminally ill wife, his friend and supporter Fred Baron, who paid his mistress to make herself scarce, and his aide Andrew Young, who was induced to publicly claim that he, not Edwards, was the father of baby Quinn. All of the deception initiated by Edwards took place while he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination, on a platform of moral obligation and justice. Continue reading
Law & Law Enforcement
Sexting Ethics
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in Philadelphia, is taking on the question of whether it was appropriate to prosecute teenagers under child pornography laws for sending naked or otherwise sexually provocative photographs of themselves over the internet, sending the photos to friends via cellphone. or posting them on their Facebook pages. The practice is called sexting, a sort of cyber-flashing, and it is, as my grandmother used to say, “all the rage.” Except that she was talking about the jitterbug. Continue reading
Roshomon Ethics: Capping Jury Damages for Malpractice
Critics of the Democratic health care reform proposals routinely raise capping jury awards for medical negligence and malpractice as a missing ingredient that would lower health care costs by making doctors’ malpractice liability insurance premiums less costly. It’s a legitimate issue worth debating, but cap advocates typically cite jury awards of outrageous damages in cases where the doctor’s conduct was defensible, while ignoring cases like this one. Continue reading
Ed Schultz Shows How to Be Wildly Unethical in Fifty Words Or Less
The pattern is distressingly clear now. Fox News finds an arrogant, doctrinaire talking head on the Right, Bill O’Reilly, and soon its Left-tilted rival, MSNBC, has recruited an even more arrogant, doctrinaire talking head on that side of the spectrum, the assaultive Keith Olbermann. O’Reilly uncivilly calls those he disagrees with “pin-heads,” while Olberman calls them “the Worst Person in the World.” This motivates Fox to find a commentator on the Right who makes O’Reilly seem modest and measured, Glenn Beck. This, naturally, pushed MSNBC to look under every rock to find a liberal host who can out-Beck Beck.
The bad news: they succeeded, and found Ed Schultz, who is louder, cruder, more uncivil and less fair than any of the above-mentioned blowhards. The worse news: if you out Beck Beck, no responsible station should put you on the air. Continue reading
What Should REALLY Matter in the Massachusetts Senate Race
The Senate race in Massachusetts has now deteriorated to the “anything goes” stage, with both Democrats and Republicans using intellectually indefensible and unprincipled arguments to get the decisive edge in a neck-and-neck battle. Continue reading
On Hoaxes, Avatar, and More Late Night Ethics
Hoax Update
- Singer, model, television personality and inexplicable celebrity Tia Tequila announced in December that she was engaged to the heiress to the Johnson and Johnson fortune, Casey Johnson. The troubled Johnson turned up dead in squalid circumstances in January, prompting a grief-stricken online statement from Tia in which she spelled her beloved’s name wrong. Shortly after this, it was revealed that the engagement was a publicity stunt by Tequila, who barely knew Johnson. Fake romances for publicity purposes are as old as the Tudors, but this sort of thing further trivializes truth for an entire generation. Continue reading
Loss of Voting Rights is a Fair Part of a Felon’s “Debt”
The Washington Post has an editorial today pronouncing Virginia’s law banning convicted felons who have completed their sentences from being able to vote a “disgrace.” Why is it a disgrace? Because, the Post says, they have paid their “debt to society.” That is untrue, because the state determines what that debt should be, not the Washington Post. Continue reading
Mark McGwire’s Steroid Confession, Part 2: Neyer and the Rationalizations
The worst thing about Mark McGwire’s belated confession is that I once again have to listen to and read the absurd, hackneyed, illogical and ethically obtuse arguments for ignoring his conduct. Like… Continue reading
Mark McGwire’s Steroid Confession, Part 1
Former slugging first baseman Mark McGwire finally admitted yesterday that he indeed was a steroid-user while playing. Telling the truth, even, as in McGwire’s case, when it is done too late and in a self-serving manner, is a good thing. Nevertheless, his admission should have no bearing at all on the judgment of him as unworthy of post-career honors. McGwire cheated, and his use of steroids damaged his fellow players and the game. Nothing he said changes any of that. Continue reading
Ethics Dunce: the North Carolina State Personnel Commission
In a video that I prefer not to link to, North Carolina Highway Patrolman Charles Jones is shown hanging his K-9 partner, Ricoh, off the ground and brutally kicking him because the dog would not release his hold on a chew toy. That video (and another similar one) got him fired, but the State Personnel Commission just reversed the decision, saying that Jones’s conduct did not sink to a level justifying dismissal for cause, only discipline for “unsatisfactory job performance.” Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 