Leadership

Integrity Check: Obama’s Embarrassing Transparency Pledge

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

President Obama is getting a mixture of ridicule and contempt from some pundits over the revelation yesterday that he accepted an award for transparency in secret. From Forbes:

“President Obama was scheduled to receive an award from the organizers of the Freedom of Information Day Conference, to be presented at the White House by “five transparency advocates.” The White House postponed that meeting because of events in Libya and Japan, and it was rescheduled…That meeting did take place – behind closed doors. The press was not invited to the private transparency meeting, and no photos from or transcript of the meeting have been made available. The event was not listed on the president’s calendar…Nor is the award mentioned anywhere on the White House website, including on the page devoted to transparency and good government. Were it not for the testimony of the transparency advocates who met secretly with the president, there wouldn’t seem to be any evidence that the meeting actually took place.”

I can guess why the President didn’t want to publicize the meeting: the same day, he had to go on television and explain why he hadn’t been transparent to the U.S. Congress about his military plans in Libya. Or perhaps he knew that the news was about to leak that the Fed had secretly sent billions in loans to foreign banks during the financial crisis, not telling the public because it would make them worried and angry. Or maybe it was the just the dawning realization that transparency in government is often neither wise nor safe, and that he was sick of being embarrassed by awards that only point  up the yawning chasm between Obama’s idealistic words and reality. (See: 2010 Nobel Peace Prize) Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official of the Week: Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA)

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Thank God we're not in AFRICA...

Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA), talking to the Scranton Times-Tribune this week, criticized the Obama administration’s actions in Libya.

“Where does it stop?” he said. “Do we go into Africa next? I don’t want to sound callous or cold, but this could go on indefinitely around the world.”

Marino is still a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as well as the House subcommittee on African foreign policy.

Libya, meanwhile, is still in Africa.

Baseball Season Opener Special: The Little League Baseball Ethics Challenge

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The Bad News Bears never had to face a problem like THIS...

The baseball season began March 31, with most teams, including my beloved Boston Red Sox, starting play on April 1. To salute this landmark, which annually signifies the date on which my mood changes from irritable to gay, I am presenting my favorite baseball related ethics post, from 2005. It is still a story with many difficult ethical dilemmas, one that explores the proper application of rules,  ethics, sportsmanship, the importance of winning, balancing the welfare of a team with the needs of the individual, and more. Here is “the Little League Baseball Ethics Challenge.”

Play Ball! Continue reading →

The Giffords Fiasco, Continued: “Gaby Giffords For Senator”

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Would Arizona Democrats run El Cid for the Senate?

The Gaby Giffords saga has officially moved from irresponsible to offensive.

If Rep. Giffords, shot in the head by Jared Loughner in January, is able to return to her challenging job after such a violent brain injury, she will be the first such victim to do so in medical history. She has been incapacitated for three months, and her inability to return to her duties for the rest of 2011, one-half her term, is assured barring a miracle of Biblical proportions. But no effort is being made to fill her de facto empty seat, and it increasingly looks as if her staff, party and supporters are determined to keep her in a job she cannot perform, Arizona and the Congress be damned, for her entire term.

This is irresponsible enough, but now there is this: the New York Times reports that Giffords’s aides, backers and supporters are seriously laying the groundwork for Giffords—who currently cannot speak, except in short sentences—to run for retiring Senator Jon Kyl’s  seat 2012: Continue reading →

Sunday Ethics Blast: An Overly-helpful Teacher, A Hands-on Youth Counselor, A Poverty Program Slacker and a Redeemed Ethicist

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Here are some quick links and observations to get your ethical juices going this Sunday… Continue reading →

Exceptionalism and the United States of America’s Grand Ethical Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Today’s morning headlines were full of violence in Syria, Bahrain, Libya, and the threat of new conflict in Egypt, as popular uprisings against entrenched dictatorships continue to grow. As the U.S. tries to somehow avoid a lead role in the international intervention in Libya, the question looms regarding its responsibility to other nations whose people yearn to be free—or at least freer. As important as what America ultimately decides to do will be for the futures of these nations, the U.S. economy, and foreign relations, something far more important is at stake. These difficult choices once again challenge the United States to affirm or reject its ideals, the very essence of what has made America what it is.

We have come to these crossroads four times before. Continue reading →

Final Ethics Verdict on TSA’s Feel-Up Pat-down

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

I was flying this week, and the security procedures were smoother than ever. Now I am certain that my molestation at check points last year was unethical, and have sufficient evidence to conclude that it was based on government incompetence and willful disregard for my comfort, dignity, and rights.  I am also wondering, more than ever, if the ardent, supposedly liberal defenders of the indefensible feel-up pat-downs have learned anything about the dangers of blind government obeisance and partisan loyalty. I hope so.

The saga so far: Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz Time! Which Euphemism Is More Unethical?

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Ethics Alarms hates euphemisms, which are usually not intended as delicate ways of describing something controversial, but rather an unethical effort to hide its true nature. Affirmative action…pro-life… pro-choice….all cowardly, all designed to deceive and avoid accountability for one’s actions and views.

Today’s quiz involves a brand new euphemism, cooked up by the Obama administration to describe warfare in Libya that the administration doesn’t want to admit is warfare: kinetic military action!

The Quiz:

Which euphemism is more unethical?

A

“Enhanced interrogation” for torture (The Bush Administration)

or

B

“Kinetic military action” for warfare (The Obama Administration)

Here is how to reach your decision: rank A and B in each of three categories…misrepresentation, cowardice, and degree of disrespect and contempt for the intelligence of the American public. First place is worth one point; second gets none. If you rate the category a tie, each gets one-half a point.

Good luck. By the way: there is no wrong answer, since both euphemisms are disgraceful. But let’s see if there is any consensus. I’ll reveal my answer later.

Ethics Star and Ethics Hero Emeritus: Elizabeth Taylor, 1932-2011

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

 

You did good, kid! Thanks.

I appreciated Elizabeth Taylor, who died yesterday, as a movie star, though I was never a fan. That she was astonishingly beautiful, there is no doubt, an actress who defined the word “voluptuous” when it didn’t mean”implants.” Like many of the Golden Age stars, acting was secondary with Taylor, who had such on-screen presence that she could steal a movie ( “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”) from the likes of Paul Newman, Burl Ives, Judith Anderson, and yes, Tennessee Williams by just lounging around in a slip. Her best adult performance was probably her first, “A Place in the Sun”; her Oscars were more or less frauds, the first (“Butterfield 8”) as a film community gesture of sympathy for her health problems, and the second, for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” as one of those nods for playing against type without embarrassing yourself that Hollywood likes to bestow on its favorites. Continue reading →

Face-to-Face With a Subject

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

In February, my monthly legal ethics course for the D.C. Bar had a surprising attendee: former Senator Arlen Specter. I didn’t realize he was among the attendees until the break, when he walked up to me, looking like the photo of him I had placed in a PowerPoint presentation the very night before. He had a big smile, and barely gave me a chance to blurt out, “Hello, Senator,” before he grabbed my hand in a steel grip, pumped it, looked directly into my eyes, said, “Good job!” and slapped me enthusiastically on the back. Continue reading →