Leadership

Bully Pulpit Ethics: Obama’s Alarming Flat Learning Curve

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

This can no longer be called a rookie mistake, like the Prof. Gates arrest affair. President Obama has now had plenty of time to absorb the fact that the President does not have a blank check to insert himself into every local controversy and use his office to sway public opinion and the conduct of others regarding matters outside his responsibilities. Still, he continues to do it.

It may seem trivial at first: the President gave an interview on TNT in which he pointedly suggested that NBA superstar LeBron James consider the Chicago Bulls as he faces free agency.  Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce Deux: Rand Paul Whiffs on Accountability

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

G.O.P Kentucky Senate nominee Rand Paul has pulled off a record-worthy achievement: he has earned Ethics Dunce status twice in a week’s time, something no one else, even serial Ethics Dunces like Sen. John Kerry and Tom DeLay, were able to do in the nearly seven years the designation has been in existence. He did not earn it the old fashioned way, however, as the old Smith-Barney ads used to say. Most Ethics Dunces do something, but in both cases Paul has proven himself worthy by what he says he believes.  This makes him kind of a classic Ethics Dunce. He literally doesn’t understand basic ethical values, or if he does, can’t articulate them. Continue reading →

Rep. Sestak and That White House Bribe…

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Can anyone remember another series of elections in which the winners found themselves in so much ethical hot water so quickly? First we have a U.S. Senate convention nominee in Connecticut (Blumenthal wasn’t really elected, just chosen by delegates) revealed having misrepresented his military record multiple times. Then the victorious Republican Senate nominee in Kentucky goes on TV and radio to prove that he cares more about being true to what the New York Times calls “textbook libertarianism” than its real world human and societal costs. Now Rep. Joe Sestak is being caught in an ethical quandary. Is he going to finger members of Obama’s White House, cover up a Federal crime, or admit he was lying? Continue reading →

The Old Pro’s Betrayal, Baseball Style

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

It’s a dramatic scenario as old as Homer. The Young Hero (YH) lets his ego get in the way of his judgement, and the Old Pro (OP), now graying, diminished and wobbly, sets him straight with a cuff to the head, a sympathetic smile, and some tough love. Years later, the YH, now established and successful, credits the OP, now dead and perhaps forgotten, with making the difference in his life.

This isn’t just movie and novel stuff, as you know: it really happens. It may have happened to you. I know I’ve played both roles, and more than once.

In 2010, however, the plot is a little different.  Continue reading →

Blumenthal’s Lies and Professional Discipline

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

I know I’m harping on Richard Blumenthal, but:

An Illinois attorney has just been suspended from the practice of law for three years for using a doctored resume to obtain his job at a big law firm.

Richard Blumenthal has doctored his resume, in public, by leading voters and media to believe he was a Vietnam veteran, when he was not. He is seeking a job, not with a law firm, but in the U.S. Senate.

The Illinois attorney has been found unfit for the practice of law by dint of his dishonest conduct, which raises doubts about his trustworthiness. Is filling out a resume to acquire a legal job itself the practice of law? No. Can anyone think of a reason why it is less indicative of bad character for a lawyer to fabricate credentials in pursuit of a non-legal job (albeit for a position that makes laws!) than a legal one? I can’t. That would seem to be an absurd distinction. Lying to the hiring partner at a law firm is worse than lying to the citizens of Connecticut? Blumenthal is the State Attorney General: he works for the people of Connecticut; they are his clients!  His lie is certainly worse.

Forget about not voting him into the Senate. Connecticut should work on kicking Richard Blumenthal out of the Attorney General’s office.

Unethical Quote of the Week: The Richard Blumenthal Campaign

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

“I think in the end, the people of Connecticut care a lot more about what’s happening today in their lives, whether they’re going to keep their homes, their health care and their jobs.”

…. Conn. Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal (D) campaign adviser Marla Romash in an interview with The Associated Press, adopting the crisis-tested Bill Clinton tactic of insisting that matters like the honesty of elected officials has no bearing on their fitness for their jobs, and is a distraction from the real interests of the public.

Translation: “In the end, we know the public doesn’t care if its elected representatives are liars who, for example, claim to have fought in Vietnam when they didn’t, as long as they deliver the pork. Heck, you’ve seen it: Senators can be outright crooks, and they’ll still get the votes.”

The Blumenthal Vietnam scandal, as I predicted, is serving as wonderfully useful ethics test for other politicians, the media, Democrats, and Connecticut voters generally. Continue reading →

More on Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s Lying Attorney General

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Now that we know a little bit more about Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Attorney General whose pursuit of a U.S. Senate seat has him periodically masquerading as a Vietnam War veteran, it is clear that simply defeating him at the polls isn’t enough. He should be impeached as Attorney General, and deserves professional discipline from the Connecticut Bar as well. Why? Well, he’s an unrepentant serial liar on a grand scale. Lawyers, including Attorney Generals, are prohibited from engaging in dishonesty, misrepresentation, fraud and deceit, and it is professional misconduct when this rises to a level that calls a lawyer’s trustworthiness and fitness to practice law into question. Does pretending to have credentials, especially military combat experience, that you do not have in order to get a job reach this level?

Of course it does. Continue reading →

Lying Senate Candidate Blumenthal: Not One Single Vote

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“Senate Hopeful Misspoke About Service” headlines the Daily Beast. “Candidate’s Words on Vietnam Service Differ From History,” announces the New York Times, which broke the story. In a case like this, such delicate phrasing amounts to journalistic deceit. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic candidate for the open Senate seat soon to be vacated by Chris Dodd, has been lying his head off, claiming that he served in Vietnam when he did not. He didn’t “misspeak,” and there isn’t any controversy about differing versions of history. He is a lair, and his lies have been deliberate, calculated, and despicable. Continue reading →

Searching for Ethical Explanations For Inexplicable Media Conduct

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I want to be fair to the news media; I really do. They work hard, and it must be maddening to hear themselves being described as biased, state-controlled Obama toadies when they feel they are making a good faith effort to cover all the important news with objectivity. So when there is an incident that seems to scream liberal media bias, like the almost complete failure to report or criticize Attorney General Eric Holder’s stunning admission that he had still not read the Arizona illegal immigration statute despite already going on record as believing it could lead to racial profiling, I believe that it only fair to search hard for legitimate, ethical reasons for their surprising handling of the story. Continue reading →

Baseball and Civil Rights: Doing the Right Thing, Kicking and Screaming

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“The Biz of Baseball” discusses a historical document proving that even as Jackie Robinson was preparing to make his color barrier-shattering debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1946, an internal committee examining the race issue for Major League Baseball was arguing that integrating the teams at the time would be a mistake. Author Maury Brown concludes:

“As the 1946 steering committee document shows, there were those at the highest level of the sport that saw African-American players as beneath the quality of their White counterparts, and that they saw the influx of African-American fans as something that would lower franchise values. Take that in, as baseball takes credit for being at the front of the Civil Rights movement.”

Major League Baseball is engaged in just such a credit-taking exercise now, as it prepares to host its annual ” Civil Rights Game, “an  exhibition between the Cardinals and Reds in Cincinnati. Continue reading →