Let’s skip, for the nonce, the fact that it is disturbing that we have a President who issues statements that read like the have been written by a character out of “Mean Girls.” (We knew that.) And that he never should have endorsed an unqualified, not-to-bright, emotionally unstable zealot like Georgia Rep Marjorie Taylor-Greene in the first place. Or that he should have jettisoned his ill-considered support for Greene many times earlier, when she emitted one of her many earth-shatteringly stupid remarks even by Trump standards.

What matters is that he has finally condemned her, she deserves to be condemned, she needs not to be in a position of power or influence because she is a human “loose cannon on deck” that cannot be trusted, and any words or action that bring us closer to seeing her out of elected office is manifestly to be applauded, regardless of the motivations behind it.

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I had not encountered “The Dignity Index” before today. You can imagine why it would catch my interest, as Ethics Alarms has presented several such scales, including The Knight Scale, The Apology Scale, The Protest Ethics Check List, and others.

The Dignity Index is the creation of UNITE, an organization founded in 2018 “to find ways to help ease divisions in the country.” The Index, say its creators, is based on these contentions:

• “Contempt causes division; dignity eases division.”
• “If we put a spotlight on dignity and contempt, we will use more dignity and less contempt.”
• “If we show Americans how they can help ease our divisions, they will jump on it.”

The Index was publicized in Utah during the 2022 mid-term elections, with UNITE scoring political speech with the numerical values on each level. “The Index was seen as reliable, fair, and intuitive,” we are told. By whom? Its creators? The score-keepers? “Voters from opposite ends of the spectrum were able to agree on scores” UNITE says. All voters? Some voters? (I am suspicious of that kind of vague validation.) “The media covered the Index eagerly on TV, newspapers, and radio.” I bet they did.  

UNITE says that it has identified three findings that “give us confidence the Index”:

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Well, having posted one brief ethics note not typically worthy of a full post, here are some more that just popped up…

1. On season two of “Broadchurch,” a quirky Netflix British drama that ran three seasons, there is an exchange in which a criminal defense attorney (that is, a barrister) in an intense and controversial trial excoriates her assistant by saying, “If you were doing your job, we’d have a chance at getting our client off!”

That is unethical and a false characterization of the defense’s job. It is also, I fear, what most people think the defense is trying to do.

A defense attorney’s job in a criminal trial is to ensure that the prosecution proves the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in the assessment of the jury. It is not to get a guilty criminal “off.” It’s a subtle distinction but a crucial one. Every defendant deserves a fair trial, which means a competent, vigorous defense, so that if he or she is ultimately found guilty, due process has been served.

The defense attorney’s mission is to make the prosecution fulfill its mission. When the prosecution’s argument fails because the defense demonstrated that the case wasn’t clearly presented or strong enough, that is entirely the prosecution’s fault. If, despite a vigorous and zealous defense a defendant is convicted by a competent jury, the ethical defense attorney should feel satisfied. An attorney who is elated that she got a guilty defendant “off” is in the wrong profession. She did her job, but the prosecution didn’t, and the result, while the right one, is nothing to celebrate.

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The lab where I go to get my bloodwork, Sunrise Labs in Arlington, Virginia on Carlin Springs Road, has a spare, gray waiting room. There is only a single decoration: a framed color photograph of gravestones.

I kid you not, as Jack Paar used to say.

I have referenced the parable of “The Dishonest Waiter” here several times after first encountering it in the film, “Denial.” The point is that when a waiter gives you the wrong change it can be presumed to be a simple innocent mistake, but when all of the waiter’s “mistakes” go in one direction, to his own financial benefit, one can no longer give such a waiter the benefit of the doubt: he’s dishonest, and those weren’t mistakes. Ethics Alarms finds the Axis news media as a perfect equivalent of the Dishonest Waiter now: all of their “mistakes” go to the disadvantage of Donald Trump and his party. Those who insist, “Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias,” I fear, are as dishonest as the metaphorical waiter.

Our Dishonest Waiters has been a busy bee lately. A few examples among many more…

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