integrity

Why We Shouldn’t Elect Liars

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

You can’t tell from the picture, but Senator Kirk’s pants are on fire.

It took a great deal of restraint for me not to write a post after reading the Daily Beast’s Micahel Tomasky’s infuriating essay about the “media witch hunt” against Elizabeth Warren. If there ever was a piece destined to send me over the edge, that was it: not only did Tomasky express indignation that anyone would use Warren’s pose as a minority to impugn her integrity, but he ridiculed concern over her plagiarism as well. Here, however, was the capper: he compared criticism of Warren to the attacks on Bill Clinton during the Monica fiasco, writing,

“The situations are in fact almost precisely the same. You had then a press pack that had decided that whether Bill Clinton was telling the truth about Monica was a question on which the fate of the republic hinged. The press became self-righteously consumed with its search for The Truth. Meanwhile, outside the Beltway, and outside of Wingnuttia (it existed then, just at about half of its current GDP), nobody cared what the truth was. The media kept producing revelations; surely, now, swore Maureen Dowd and Michael Kelly, America will see this man for the reprobate he is! America looked, yawned, told the press to start acting like grownups, and continued to approve of the job Clinton was doing as president at rates near 70 percent and to oppose impeachment at similar levels.” Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms Lubricant 2: Ken at Popehat on Integrity and Free Speech

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Today has been designated “Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day,” and unlike the last declared day of mass web defiance, “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”, which was really “Everybody Go Out of Their Way To Insult All Muslims Because Some of Them Are Violent Fanatics And Comedy Central Didn’t Have The Guts To Stand Up To Them Day”, I support this one fully. Kimberlin is a violent far Left activist, the founder of the group Velvet Revolution, and a convicted terrorist who, in 1978, set off eight bombs in Speedway, Indiana, earning him the title of “The Speedway Bomber.”

When bloggers like Aaron Worthing and Robert Stacy McCain in Maryland wrote about  Kimberlin’s past, and his current involvement with active progressive groups, he mounted a campaign to silence and harass them, filing law suits and engaging in other tactics far more menacing, if not as expensive. You can read Worthing’s harrowing tale of Kimberlin’s campaign against him here.

The web’s most tireless crusader against free speech suppression by litigation, threats and harassment is, of course, the Ethics Alarms 2012 Blogger of the Year, Ken at Popehat. He has already blogged about Kimberlin, who fits nicely with the other Internet Furies and speech bullies that he has exposed, like Crystal Cox. But his theme this week was broader, and it is one that constantly troubles me. Taking off from blogger Michelle Malkin’s post declaring that there should be solidarity for targeted conservative bloggers, Ken protests that since free expression is the objective, the ideology of the bloggers being bullied shouldn’t matter. He writes: Continue reading →

Anderson Cooper vs. “Human Barbie”: A Double-cross Masquerading As Integrity

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Sarah Burge, a.k.a “Human Barbie,” who actually contains more plastic than Plastic Barbie, who, come to think of it,  is quite possibly a better human being than “Human Barbie.” It’s complicated.

One of the wonderful things about the Internet is that somewhere out there is always someone who has seen through the fog of lies, spin, misrepresentations and conventional wisdom, and is writing about it. The first trick, of course, is finding such individuals, who may be part of the spin and confusion the very next day. The next one is getting the truth to as many people as possible.

When I heard that Anderson Cooper had kicked the plastic-surgery mutant named Sarah Burge off his show on the air, I was ready to give him an Ethics Hero award. Not only has Burge, who is known as “Human Barbie”, * indulged her pathological obsession with plastic surgery to spend almost a half-million dollars making herself look like the iconic Mattel doll, she is trying to make sure her daughters are similarly afflicted. She told Cooper she wants to botox her 15-year-old daughter, and she is setting up a trust for her 7-year-old so she can start mutilating herself when she turns 18.

Suddenly Cooper stopped the interview, saying, “I gotta be honest, I gotta just stop. I’m sorry. I try to be really polite to all my guests, but I just think you’re dreadful. I honestly don’t want to talk to you anymore.” Continue reading →

Newark Mayor Cory Booker Recants

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Don’t feel bad, Mayor. Galileo understands.

When, I wonder, will the political parties realize that having spokespersons with proven credibility and integrity, who will speak the truth and not embrace cynical, misleading talking points, can only help the parties’ causes? Based on the sad Corey Booker episode, I’m guessing the answer is “Never.”

The Obama campaign, taking its cue from New Gingrich (which itself is disturbing), put out what can only be called an anti-capitalism ad, condemning Mitt Romney’s leadership of  Bain Capital, a private investment firm that acquires companies, streamlines and repairs them to make them profitable, or liquidates them if they are not. The ad relies on breath-taking ignorance of how investment and business creation works, but fits nicely into the Occupy Wall Street mythology. For a President trying, theoretically, to get the economy humming again, it was a stunning example of campaign deceit.

Cory Booker is Newark’s Democratic mayor, a devoted Obama supporter, and like his state’s Republican Governor Chris Cristie, remarkably willing to tell the truth, for someone in his field. On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Booker pronounced the Bain ad “nauseating”:

“If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses. And this [the ad], to me, I’m very uncomfortable with….I have to just say, from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital.” Continue reading →

Racism, the Media, and Reverend Wright Distortions

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

He’s b-a-a-a-a-a-c-k! (Sort of….)

This has been happening to me a lot lately. I see a political story with ethical implications, and decide to pass. I think, “Nah, this is another ‘the news media is in the tank for Obama story”—it’s pretty obvious; I don’t need to go there.” Then the story starts to churn, the news media, left and right, distorts it thoroughly through spin and stupidity, and pretty soon I can’t stand it any more.

The controversy over a proposed, and rejected, Super-Pac ad blitz focusing on the President’s controversial relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright—demagogue, radical, racist—began when a leaked copy of a proposal prepared for conservative billionaire Joe Ricketts was leaked to the New York Times. The Times’ decision to put the proposal on its front page was sadly typical, and irresponsible. We don’t what wacky proposals circulate in the back rooms of both parties and their allies, and I don’t see why we would want to know, unless, as in this case, the objective was to suggest a series of things that aren’t true. Prime among them was that the Romney campaign was preparing to mount a full-bore attack on the President’s character. Nothing has suggested that, except the Times, whose story forced the presumed GOP nominee to apologize for a mode of attack 1) he had nothing to do with and 2) had never been approved anyway.

This was unfair, slanted and biased conduct by the Times, and the point at which I decided, “Oh, heck, we’ll be seeing the Times and the Washington Post, not to mention the broadcast media, pulling this until November. People either will recognize it for the partisan bias  it is, or they won’t.”

Then came Carol Costello on a typical morning for CNN, when she or the regular morning host Soledad O’Brien spend every AM sneering at Republicans and looking at the camera all dewy-eyed whenever President Obama’s name comes up. Costello, who I have concluded sets my teeth on edge even worse than the smug O’Brien, began her day with this: “Today’s question: Will racial politics work in 2012?” Continue reading →

“Pow Wow Chow” Follow-Up: My Breitbart Interview On Harvard and Professor Plagiarism

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Michael Patrick Healy, an author and conservative activist, interviewed me today regarding what Harvard Law School’s response ought to be if indeed Elizabeth Warren engaged in plagiarism with her contributions, as “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee”, to the cookbook “Pow Wow Chow.”

His article, including the interview, are on the Breitbart Big Government site, here.

Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman Ethics Train Wreck Update: An Integrity Test For The Lynch Mob

/ Jack Marshall / 46 Comments

As Emily used to say, “Never mind!” Al? Spike?

The news coverage of the  emerging evidence in the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman was slow in coming this week, perhaps because it makes the news media look bad. Reluctantly, however, it is finally getting out, though perhaps not with the breathless urgency the media mustered when it was actively manufacturing fake evidence—-a doctored 911 tape, a grainy film showing no injuries to Zimmerman’s head—so Martin’s shooter could be pronounced a killer-racist before he was even charged.

ABC News, perhaps attempting to atone for its disgraceful coverage of the case in March, released a through report on its website of latest developments, revealing that:

  • “Two police reports written the night that George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin said that Zimmerman had a bloody face and nose”
  • “Zimmerman seemed to have a battered nose and bloodied face…and the back of his clothing was soiled with wet grass…Zimmerman was also bleeding from … the back of his head.”
  • “Two witness accounts appear to back up Zimmerman’s version of what happened when they describe a man on his back with another person wearing a hoodie straddling him and throwing punches.”
  • “The documents state that Zimmerman can be heard yelling for help 14 times on a 911 call recorded during the fight.” Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethical If We Want It To Be: NBA Flopping and Fooling the Ref”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

This is a wonderful comment by Dwayne N. Zechman, which goes to the heart of what makes sports ethics so perplexing. Let me leave it to Dwayne now, and I’ll have some comments at the end. Here is his Comment of the Day on the post Ethical If We Want It To Be: NBA Flopping and Fooling the Ref:

“I admit I’m having a little trouble with this one.

“If I understand correctly, your premise is that each sport has its rulebook, and what’s ethical or not is mostly determined by what’s in that rulebook. The outside margins of “mostly” come from long-standing traditions, and de facto rules related to safety or practicality. The game isn’t life–it’s a distinct “closed system” if you will, and the rules about life might not apply. Or perhaps it’s better to say that we can choose to declare (in the rulebook or through tradition) that certain rules of life do not apply within the game and that’s okay. Doing so diminishes neither the ethical rule nor the game itself.

“So the beginning of my trouble is that this smacks a little of a combination of “Everybody does it”, “If it isn’t illegal, it’s ethical”, and The Compliance Dodge. Okay, I can accept that, though, because we’ve already stipulated that specific ethical principles can be exempted from a game/sport.

“Next comes my own dissonance in trying to reconcile this article with other recent articles here on Ethics Alarms about pro football, where the same exemption of ethical principles is applied, but somehow shouldn’t be. Okay, I can accept this, too. There is a distinction in that an ethical principle shouldn’t be exempted from the game when there are clear, demonstrable consequences to the player that persist after the game is over and the player’s real life resumes. In a situation such as that, it’s impossible to exempt an ethical principle JUST for the game because the exemption itself renders the game no longer a “closed system”. Continue reading →

Ethics Round-Up in Race, Religion and Sex: GOP Bigotry, Georgetown’s Integrity, and Warren’s Absurdity

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Help! I’m buried in great ethics stories!

This is one of those periods in which there are so many juicy ethics stories that I am falling far behind. Here are three that are worthy of longer treatment that I can’t allow to get lost in the crowd: Continue reading →

The Yahoo! Mess

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Yahoo’s CEO, Scott Thompson, just “resigned” from his post after it was clear that he was going to be sacked. He had been on the job just four months. Why the sudden exit? A simple Google search by a Yahoo! board member revealed that Thompson had lied on his résumé, claiming to have a degree in computer science. This opened a can of worm, Pandora’s box, and an ethics cornucopia, all wrapped in one:

  • Thompson’s initial response was that the mistake was “inadvertent,” and that he regretted not having caught the error. This attempt t0 brass his way out of deception of his own making should probably ensure that he never leads another company. If he had taken 20 seconds to think about it, Thompson would have realized that using a second lie to try to cover the first would only make it clear that his curriculum vitae fabrication was not an aberration. Naturally, it was quickly discovered that he had the same fabrication on his résumé when he had applied for his previous job. Continue reading →