Is President Obama the fair, ethical, unifying, anti-partisan president of all the people that he promised to be in 2008, or is he a Machiavellian, undercover Chicago pol, willing and ready to use divisiveness and deceit to enhance his power, silence critics and advance his agenda? During the past two years, there has been ample evidence supporting both descriptions, but his address in Arizona Wednesday could settle the issue. If the President emulates his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, using the massacre in Arizona as a political wedge the way Clinton used the Oklahoma City bombing—if he adopts the philosophy of former Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emmanuel that one should never waste a crisis—then we will know the dispiriting truth about Barack Obama. Continue reading
integrity
Comment of the Day: The Tide Mini-skirt Commercial
Ethics Alarms has been getting some excellently written and reasoned comments lately, and it is time to institute a feature I have enjoyed on other blogs, and that is especially appropriate for this one: “The Comment of the Day.”
There won’t be one every day, of course, and the criteria is variable. In general, a Comment of the Day is one that I feel is especially well-stated rather than one I necessarily agree with—like the first entry, in fact. As I have stated elsewhere on the site, I don’t find the Tide mini-skirt commercial unethical, and would not have featured it on Ethics Alarms had readers not brought it into the discussion. I think it is culturally wrong-headed; I think it is obnoxious; I think the choice of song is in poor taste. Still, if Proctor and Gamble thinks it can sell more Tide by attaching its pitch to the assertion that fathers are boobs to question overtly sexual fashion choices by teenagers, and that mothers who encourage underage daughters (Yes, yes, we don’t know that the “daughter” isn’t 25, but the actress sure is doing her best giggly teen impression. We don’t know the “father” isn’t really the next door neighbor, either.) to wear skirts the size of dinner napkins sure to expose the Britney Zone every time the daughter sits down are being responsible parents, I wish them luck. I buy the detergent in our house, by the way; the commercial is sexist by its assumptions.
Here is the comment… Continue reading
Maybe Lies Aren’t Protected Speech After All…
This week, in United States v. Robbins (W.D. Va.); a district court disagreed with previous court opinions this year holding that the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a criminal act to falsely represent that one had been awarded a military honor for valor on the field of combat, was a violation of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech: Continue reading
Ethics Dunce: Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Here’s what an ethical governor does with the power to pardon and commute sentences, when he believes a young man sentenced for his participation in a murder was sentenced too harshly: Continue reading
Tide Commercial Reflections–with Acti-Lift!
This post isn’t going to have any additional ethical musings on the Tide commercials themselves, for I am sick to death of them, and almost as sick of arguing about them. What I have been thinking about instead is what to glean from the fact that an ethics critique of a 30 second laundry soap commercial has become the most viewed post on Ethics Alarms after fourteen months and about 1,100 posts, and has generated more debate than all but a few other issues.
Not that I much mind becoming the apparent ethics authority on Tide (with Acti-Lift!). It’s a small niche, but at least it’s a niche. If you Google almost anything about the original commercial—“green shirt” and Tide, for example—Ethics Alarms is the first non-Tide site that gets listed. Still, with carefully considered ( and occasionally proofed) posts on politics, immigration, global warming, education, sex, law enforcement competing with it for attention, my ethics review of a TV commercial has attracted far more interest than any one of them.
Why? My thoughts: Continue reading
Ex-Rep. Steve Driehaus and Sore Loser Ethics
Former U.S. Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio), who lost his seat last November to Republican Steve Chabot, is suing an anti-abortion group for making statements that he says misled voters about his stance on abortion, leading to his demise at the polls.
In his defamation lawsuit, Driehaus argues that the Susan B. Anthony List lied about him in public statements and then sued him for trying to stop the group from posting misleading billboards, thereby “depriving him of his livelihood.” Driehaus, who campaigned as an anti-abortion candidate, voted for the controversial national health care law, which many anti-abortion activists maintain supports taxpayer-funded abortion. Driehaus argued and still maintains that the claim was false, and that the law bars any federal funding of abortion.
Driehaus’s suit is unethical and ridiculous. Continue reading
The Second Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The BEST of Ethics 2010
The Best in Ethics 2010. Not nearly long enough…but still a lot of men, women and deeds worth celebrating.
Most Important Ethical Act of the Year: Continue reading
One More Addition to 2010’s Worst in Ethics: Sen. John McCain
I inadvertently left a category out of the Ethics Alarms year end awards for 2010, perhaps because it is such a discouraging one. I just remedied the omission, and added this:
Integrity Meltdown of the Year: Sen. John McCain. A sad spectacle indeed: since losing his run for the presidency in 2008 and having to face a strong challenge from the Right in seeking re-election to the U.S. Senate, the celebrated Arizona maverick reversed long-held positions in favor of creating a route to citizenship for illegal immigrants, reversing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and ending the low Bush tax rates on upper-income Americans. He didn’t change his mind because of sudden epiphanies of clarity, either. He just wants to stay in the Senate. True, McCain held fast to other principles, like opposing earmarks, but those were the ones his critics on the Right supported too. Integrity means being true to your core values even when it is inconvenient or unpopular. Once upon a time, that description fit Sen. John McCain. As of 2010, this was no longer true.
The Second Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The Worst of Ethics 2010 (Part 1)
Happy New Year, and welcome to the Second Annual Ethics Alarms Awards, recognizing the Best and Worst of ethics in 2010!
This is the first installment of the Worst; the rest will appear in a subsequent post. (The Best is yet to come.
) Continue reading
SyFy and the Absence of Integrity: A Case Study
At TV.com, there is a fascinating account of the evolution of the Sci Fi Channel, once cable’s reliable source for science fiction programming, into SyFy, which is nothing of the sort. As the article points out, the two individuals who have run the channel since 2002, Bonnie Hammer and Dave Howe, appear not to like, understand, or trust the genre their channel supposedly was dedicated to advancing. Now, having cancelled the two shows its science fiction fans most enjoyed, “Caprica” and “Stargate Universe,” SyFy is a bona fide whatsis, with a schedule that includes professional wrestling, cheesy horror movies, ghost hunter and psychic reality shows, and whatever else Hammer and Howe think will attract what they regard as a non-geek audience.
Here is the problem: Continue reading
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