Lara Logan’s Cairo Ordeal Starts An Ethics Train Wreck

A female CBS correspondent gets cut off from her security while doing live coverage of the demonstrations in Cairo, is surrounded by a group of Egyptians in the crowd, attacked, and sexually assaulted. She is rescued by Egyptian police and flown back to the U.S., where she is hospitalized.

This what happened to “60 Minutes” Correspondent Lara Logan, and you wouldn’t think such an unambiguous example of brutality and criminal conduct would raise any ethical controversies. But the already nasty incident has metastasized into a full-fledged Ethics Train Wreck, with both the Left and the Right taking turns disgracing themselves.

And the media, of course. Continue reading

Egypt Ethics: Integrity Deficit on the Right

It has been fascinating and troubling listening to conservative radio talk-show host Mark Levin lambast fellow conservatives who have been siding with the revolutionaries trying to end the 30 year rule of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Levin argues that such support is foolish and ignorant, because there is no way for the United States to be sure that the resulting new government, even if it is more democratic than the current one (hardly a difficult bar to clear), wouldn’t be worse for the interests of the United States. Continue reading

Latest Political Correctness Bullying Victim: Kenneth Cole

If you can’t make a silly joke on Twitter, that on-line  jungle of the trivial, incoherent, moronic, witty and self-promotional 140 word blurb, where can you make it? Designer Kenneth Cold sent out a tongue-in-cheek bit of satirical self-promotion, tweeting:

“Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC.”

Horrors. Continue reading

Unethical Comment of the Week: Vice-President Joe Biden

“I wouldn’t call him a dictator, no.”

-Vice-President Joe Biden, answering a reporter’s question about whether soon-to-be ex-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is a dictator.

President Mubarak is a dictator. By what measurement would we conclude otherwise? Continue reading