hypocrisy

Hypocrite…or Lawyer?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

"After we're done, darling, let's discuss your sexual harassment suit. I think you have a good case!"

This story probably will strike you as a bit odd.

Prosecutors have charged a 50-year-old lawyer, Robert Michael Hoffman of San Francisco, with rape after complaints from four women who told police he assaulted them when they answered his Craigslist ad for rough sex. The prosecutors say that he assaulted at least three of the four women  and engaged in rape, sexual battery, forced oral sex and one count of false imprisonment.

The odd part? Hoffman practices employment law , specializing in sexual harassment cases. Sexual harassment law is explicitly designed to ensure that employees are not exploited, debased or discriminated against because of their gender.Needless to say, rape, sexual battery and  forced oral sex would qualify as extreme sexual harassment. Continue reading →

The Warren Jeffs Sex Tapes and the Media’s Ethical Incoherence

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Warren Jeffs and his happy, happy wives---caught on tape!

Warren Jeffs, the Texas polygamist recently convicted of raping his child-wives, was sent to his richly-deserved prison sentence with the help of some horrific tape recordings of Jeffs proselytizing his young victims on their God-directed duty to satisfy his sexual needs, and more tapes that recorded his grunts and pants as he had sexual intercourse with them.

The Salt Lake Tribune requested and received copies of the tapes as well as other evidence in the trial. Then, according to an explanation in the paper, it editors had extensive discussions internally regarding the journalistic ethics of making the tapes generally available online. The paper’s decision:

“We opted to post only clips because we did not believe it would be ethical to make recordings of sexual assault, in action or imminent, easily available on the Web. Young girls can be heard in the tapes, and the jury’s decision was clear: These girls are a predator’s victims. In our role as journalists covering difficult stories, we vow to do our jobs while minimizing harm. In choosing not to provide these materials, we acted to minimize harm.

“What you will hear if you listen to the clips is Jeffs explaining and justifying his abuse of young girls in the name of religion. His “teaching” is helpful in understanding the case and the jury’s decision.”

This is hypocrisy of the highest order, and an abuse of a news organization’s function. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce, Ethics Hero: Name Calling and One-Way Civility On the Left

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

John Boehner was just like this during debt ceiling negotiations. Well, sort-of. OK, he really wasn't like this at all, but I don't like him, so it's not uncivil for me to say he was.

The popular Democratic, progressive, liberal and news media (I know I’m being redundant here) slur for the Republican House and its Tea Party warriors during and after the budget ceiling debate was “terrorists,” suggesting an analogy between the GOP insisting on major expenditure cuts in the budget as a condition for raising the debt ceiling, and political and religious extremists who threaten to kill people if they don’t get their way. Needless to say, it’s a disgraceful, dishonest, illogical and slanderous comparison. Whether the GOP’s negotiating stance was fair, reasonable or right can be debated; that the intent of the strategy was to strengthen the nation’s financial health is not.

To many of the Republicans involved, incurring more debt without a guarantee of serious deficit and debt reduction in the future was more dangerous than allowing the nation to default on its obligations. Add to that the fact that many in the Tea Party  leadership believe that the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling was overblown, and it is clear: the Republicans were using their control over the immediate fate of something progressives  wanted more than conservatives as a bargaining chip in a political disagreement. It may have been irresponsible; it may have been a risk; it may have been a bluff. But it was not terrorism. It was politics. Hardball politics no doubt, but well within accepted standards

Oh, I forgot: there is another reason the Republicans weren’t acting like terrorists. They weren’t threatening to kill anybody, and they didn’t kill anybody. Continue reading →

Fick* of the Month: Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

 

Rep. Walsh says that President Obama has no shame. He should know: having no shame is something of a specialty of Walsh's.

Freshman U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill) is a vocal Tea Party champion dedicated to fiscal responsibility, meeting obligations, protecting the future for our children, and living within our means. How does he reconcile these values with the fact that he owes $117,437 in child support to his ex-wife and three children?

He can’t. It’s impossible. Walsh is the epitome of a political hypocrite, and because he is shameless about his despicable failure to meet his family obligations, he is also a fick. In fact, he is the Ethics Alarms Fick of the Month.

To be fair, Walsh disputes the amount that his wife claims he owes her in the suit she recently filed. You know what? It doesn’t matter how much he owes. Ethically, he is just as much of a fraud and a fick whether he owes $100,000, $25,000, or $500. For this is the self-righteous freshman Congressman who says,  in a video speech lecturing President Obama on fiscal responsibility, “I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money!” ”Have you no shame, sir?” he asks. Continue reading →

Perplexing Oxymoron of the Month: the Unethical Ethics Fellow

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

You may want to fine tune that ethics program, guys....

From news reports: “A former Harvard University fellow studying ethics has been charged with hacking into the computer network at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology  to steal more than five million academic articles….Aaron Swartz, 24, was indicted on six counts including wire fraud and faces up to 35 years in prison and a million dollar fine if convicted.”

What?

Questions abound:

What do they teach in Harvard ethics classes?

What kind of grades did Swartz get?

Does this prove that the course of study was junk, or does it prove that he was studying the right subject, since he obviously has a lot to learn?

Is it reasonable to say, “Imagine how unethical he would have been if he wasn’t an Ethics fellow”?

Does this prove that one can be an Ethics Fellow and an Unethical Fellow at the same time?

Should an Ethics Fellow who proves himself to be unethical  be allowed to cite his credentials as an ethics fellow?

If those who can’t do, teach, is he still qualified to teach ethics?

Finally, if becoming an Ethics Fellow at Harvard can’t be relied upon to set the “stealing 5 million academic articles is wrong” alarm, what’s the point?

Unethical Quote of the Week: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Hillary said something unethical? I'm shocked! Shocked!

“But the bottom line is, whose side are you on? Are you on Qadhafi’s side or are you on the side of the aspirations of the Libyan people and the international coalition that has been created to support them? For the Obama Administration, the answer to that question is very easy.”

—–Obama Administration Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, responding in a press conference to Congressional objections that the U.S. continued participation in attacks on Libya violates the War Powers Resolution—which it undoubtedly does.

Most of the objections to Sec. Clinton’s comments focus on her apparent hypocrisy; after all, this is the same woman who as a U.S. Senator in 2003 objected to “are you with us or against us” rhetoric from the Bush Administration regarding the Iraq war by saying,  “I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.” But this isn’t necessarily hypocrisy: Hillary has a right to change her mind. What is unethical about her statement on Libya is that it is manipulative, unfair and dishonest. Continue reading →

Incompetent Elected Official of the Month: Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA)

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Rep. Jeff Denham: Now we know.

First the airlines are unfairly pilloried in the media thanks to an ignorant serviceman’s YouTube complaint about being charged excessive baggage fees for his gear….despite the fact that 1) the airlines already give servicemen  discounts on extra bags (though they shouldn’t) and 2) the fees charged will be reimbursed, just like my business travel costs are reimbursed by the people who hire me.

Now Congressman Jeff Denham (R-CA) has introduced a non-binding resolution in the House that threatens to use contracts between the military and commercial airlines to punish carriers that do not waive all baggage fees for deployed military personnel.

Rep. Denham’s resolution has its good side: now we know that he is unethical, a fool beyond redemption, and a bully as well. Continue reading →

Return to a Sore Subject

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

"Does anybody care?"

[NOTE: An unusually busy travel schedule combined with terrible hotel WiFi and a week that was already stuffed with juicy and provocative ethics stories resulted in my not fulfilling my duties very well the last three days, for which I apologize sincerely. I’m going to make every effort to catch up this weekend.]

Rep. Weiner resigned at last, noting that his district and its constituents deserved to have a fully functioning representative in Congress, and that he could no longer fulfill that role. True enough, though one has to ask (or at least I do): if the people of Queens and Brooklyn deserve better representation than a hard-working, if dishonest, obsessed and twisted, pariah can offer, what about the people of the 8th District of Arizona, who have a representative who can’t funtion in her post at all?

I was going to wait until the six-month mark in Gaby Giffords’ rehabilitation to raise this matter again, since that will mark a full 25% of the Congresswoman’s term that she has been unable to serve, but the combination of Weiner’s resignation and the news of Giffords being released from the hospital created too much dissonance for me to ignore. I fully expect that I will be writing some version of this post 18 months hence, after Rep. Giffords’ entire Congressional term has passed without her voting on a bill or answering a constituent’s letter. To quote the singing John Adams in “1776,”: “Is anybody there? Does anybody care?”

Reports from various medical personnel enthused that Giffords has made remarkable progress, and “seems” to understand “most’ of what is being said to her, though she still has trouble articulating responses. That is great progress for someone who has some of her brain blown away by a gunshot at close range, but it sure doesn’t sound like someone who is going to be making a persuasive argument on the House floor any time soon, or ever. So are we serious about this running the country stuff, or aren’t we? Continue reading →

As Weiner Finally Goes, Some Lessons That We Already Should Know

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I’m sitting in the Washington, D.C. offices of  NPR, waiting to go live at 11 AM. with some ethics commentary about the imminent resignation of Rep. Weiner. He is finally doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, just as his Democratic colleagues are defenestrating him for the wrong reasons. Once yesterday’s old photos surfaced showing Weiner in women’s underwear, his fate was sealed…although it was really sealed already. His forced resignation was inevitable, and the fact that the Congressman was unable to see it so that he could preserve some shred of honor by doing his duty as soon as his disgraceful conduct became public shows how wretched his judgment is.

The 56% of his constituents who, according to polls, thought that he should remain in his job demonstrated their complete lack of understanding of the requirements of leadership and ethics. They weren’t the only ones. It has been fascinating, though depressing, to read the comment threads on various websites and blogs covering the Weiner story, because they are so similar in their rationalizations. The categories, and reasons why they are so misguided, are:

  • “Lots of the people criticizing Weiner engage in dubious inline conduct themselves; they are hypocrites.” No, they are non-leaders. When you accept the responsibility of leadership, you accept the duties of  integrity, honesty, and honorable conduct. Rep. Weiner gave up the right to behave as sleazy as the guy we never heard of next door when he ran for office. Continue reading →

Phony Online Lesbian Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Lesbian blogger Paula Brooks

When the media and internet were buzzing about the shocking discovery that the celebrated blogger “A Gay Girl in Damascus” was really “A Straight American Man in Scotland” who had fooled all his readers and followers through the lie-machine called the Internet, one of those who expressed shock and criticism of the hoax was Paula Brooks, the deaf lesbian editor of the popular lesbian news blog, Lez Get Real. When a man who said he was Brooks’ father told Washington Post reporters who called to interview the blogger that they could only speak to her through him because of her hearing disability, the reporters did some checking. Son of a gun: Paula’s “father” was really Paula, who was really Bill Graber, a straight, married, former construction worker.

Observations: Continue reading →