Leadership

The Duty of Candor and Rich Iott, the Tea Party’s Nazi Re-enactor Candidate

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Rich Iott, the Tea Party darling who is the Republican candidate for Ohio’s 9th District, isn’t necessarily unfit to be a U.S. Representative just because he used to dress up as a Nazi soldier, although he would have to come up with a much better explanation of why he thought that was a fun thing to do than he has managed to do so far. And if he’s planning on borrowing Christine O’Donnell’s “I am not a witch” campaign video approach—“I am not a Nazi. I’m you!” Worth a shot? Nah—-he should forget it. Still, let’s give him the benefit of a very large doubt.

It doesn’t help. He has still disqualified himself.

The reason—other than the fact that he admires Nazis—Rich Iott has disqualified himself from any elected office of trust is that he never disclosed to his movement, his party, his supporters, the media or the voters an aspect of his background that was absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, “Bet the farm on it, Maggie, ’cause the horse is a sure thing!” certain to embarrass him and anyone who believed in his candidacy if it came to light, before or after the election. Continue reading →

Dear Christine O’Donnell: No, You’re Not Me, and Please Stop Saying You Are

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

In Christine O’Donnell’s latest campaign ad in her race for the Delaware U.S. Senate seat, she says,

“I didn’t go to Yale. I didn’t inherit millions like my opponent. I’m you.”

Observations: Continue reading →

Let Us Not Forget Itawamba County, Miss.

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

I am haunted second thoughts about awarding Obion County the title of Unethical Community of the Year.

For one thing, it is only October, and there is a lot of time for another unethical community or more to reveal its lack of decency to the nation and the world (and then to have Keith Olbermann declare that it represents the ideal for Tea Partiers). Still, I am having a hard time imagining anything worse for an American community than directing its fire department to let a human being’s home burn down, whether or not the homeowner has three dogs and a cat (as Mr. Cranick did, and I emphasize did), because that human being didn’t pay a $75 fee.

The real reason I am having doubts, however, is the horrible tale that came to light this past spring.  Continue reading →

The Replay and Integrity: Baseball at an Ethics Crossroads

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

On the final day of baseball’s regular season, the San Francisco Giants were playing the San Diego Padres in a contest with post-season implications for both teams. Had the Padres won , it would have forced two one-game playoffs, with the loser of a Giants-Padres showdown today facing the Braves on Tuesday to determine the National League Wild Card team. In the bottom of the first, the Giants’ Andres Torres smashed a Mat Latos  pitch down the left-field line. The ball clearly landed right on the chalk-marked foul line, kicking up a cloud of white dust as undeniable proof that the ball was fair,and the batter destined for second base or beyond. Third-base ump Mike Everitt called it foul, however. Broadcasters, the Giants managers, everyone protested and pointed, but to no avail.

The Giant’s won anyway, so it only mattered to Torres’s batting average. But a time-bomb is ticking. Baseball, which was embarrassed last season into adopting video replay for home run calls, allows no videotape mandated reversals on other blown umpire calls. As the game heads into its period of highest visibility, when casual baseball fans start paying attention to the best teams playing for the title, the likelihood of an obviously wrong call by an umpire leading to an undeserved win in a crucial game is unacceptably high. Why does baseball’s leadership resist a solution? Continue reading →

Rahm Emanuel, History and Hyperbole Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

There are times when obvious exaggeration is nothing worse than politeness, nothing more than an expression of admiration and affection. “You’re the best boss anyone ever had,” is in this category, especially when the boss is retiring or dying. But when one is speaking in public about controversial and historical matters involving well-known public figures, the margin between excusable hyperbole and unethical dishonesty or worse is much smaller. Al Gore learned this when he played loyal Vice-President on the day his President was impeached by vote of the House of Representatives. Gore’s statement that Bill Clinton was “a man I believe will be regarded in the history books as one of our greatest Presidents” was intended as supportive, but interpreted as a toadying endorsement of Clinton’s unsavory and dishonest conduct, impeachable or not. It probably cost Gore the Presidency.

Worse yet was Trent Lott’s clumsy effort to praise the ancient, infirm and mentally failing Sen. Strom Thurmond at his 100th birthday party. Lott said, “I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have all these problems over all these years, either.” Thurmond, running on the Dixiecrat ticket, had opposed segregation, and Lott’s comment, less fact than flattery, made him sound like he longed for the days of Jim Crow and “white only”rest rooms. The lessons of these hyperbolic gaffes are similar: if the well-intentioned compliment concerns a public figure in historical context, historical exaggerations either appear to be unjust to history or its important figures, seem to make inappropriate value judgments, or come off as a blatant effort to mislead the public.

Rahm Emanuel hit the Trifecta with his fawning farewell to President Obama, as he left the White House to run for Mayor of Chicago. Obama, he said, is “the toughest leader any country could ask for, in the toughest times any president has ever faced.”

Wow. Continue reading →

The Facebook Founder’s Sinister and Unethical Hundred Million Dollar Gift

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

When is a hundred million dollar gift to help schools unethical?

It is unethical when it represents the power of money taking control of government. It is unethical when it induces politicians to breach their duty to obey the law. It is unethical when it demonstrates that the principles of democracy and law can be bought, sold, and distorted for a price.

In a shocking development last week that received very little thoughtful or critical coverage from the news media, Facebook mogul and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg gave the Newark schools $100 million in return for dictating how the schools are run. Zuckerberg, backed by Oprah Winfrey, another billionaire, who put the school governance sale on her TV show,  wants Newark Mayor Cory Booker to run them.  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who also appeared on the strange Oprah segment, has agreed in principle to make Booker the overseer of his city’s infamously bad school system. As for the fact that a New Jersey statute doesn’t allow the governor to put the mayor of a city in charge of its schools once the state has taken over control of them, well, money, not the law, rules in New Jersey, and that appears to be just dandy according to the state’s governor, Zuckerberg, Oprah, Republicans, Newark parents, news editors and citizens.

Meanwhile, that whirring sound you hear is Thomas Jefferson spinning in his grave. Continue reading →

Ethics Heroes: “The American Muslim’s” American and Canadian Muslims

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

On the website The American Muslim, a statement has been posted that condemns the threatening and violent acts by Muslim extremists. Signed by approximately 200 Muslims so far, many of them distingusihed leaders and intellectuals in the Muslim community, it is welcome, helpful, and courageous.

Entitled “A DEFENSE OF FREE SPEECH BY AMERICAN AND CANADIAN MUSLIMS,” it reads: Continue reading →

Three Strikes—Wait—Four? Five? on Christine O’Donnell

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

At some point, the Tea Party stalwarts are going to have to accept the fact that Christine O’Donnell is an untrustworthy, credential fabricating dud, much like Mark Kirk, the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Illinois who has been caught embellishing his resume with fantasy and exaggeration. Continue reading →

Despite Evidence, Obama’s D.O.J., Democrats and News Media Stonewall Black Panther Case

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The bizarre conduct of the Obama-Holder Department of Justice in refusing to to fully prosecute a 2008 instance of blatant voter intimidation at the polls by members of the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia has been denied by D.O.J. (despite a video that proves the Voting Rights Act violation ), ignored or buried by most major news sources (despite Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander chiding his own paper for failing the public with inadequate coverage of the story) and attacked as manufactured by Republicans by partisan Obama defenders  (despite the fact that, well, it just isn’t.) It is both disturbing and depressing that this conduct persists, long after the event itself, months after one Justice Department Civil Rights attorney quit to expose the episode publicly, and while the non-partisan U.S. Commission Civil Rights holds hearings on the case.

At issue is racial bias in Attorney General Erik Holder’s Civil Rights Division, which the Obama Administration must not permit, tolerate or excuse, but appears to be anyway. Continue reading →

9-11 Conspiracy Claims: The Hate Crime We Cannot Stop, But Must Not Tolerate

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

The stated belief that the United States government murdered its own citizens and military personnel on September 11, 2001 is, if sincere, proof that an individual possesses intractable misconceptions, hatred and disrespect for America’s history, culture, and ideals. If the belief is not sincere, then the claim that the Bush administration orchestrated (or allowed) the Twin Towers and Pentagon attacks is an effort to harm our nation by destroying its reputation and honor, dragging it into the swamp of other nations to which murder and dictatorship are traditional. The First Amendment requires that we allow these individuals, be they deranged, sinister, irresponsible or merely stupid, to deny what makes the United States unique and slander its elected leaders, but it does not require that we accord them respect or tolerance. Continue reading →