Ken Salazar

A No Tolerance Rule For Cabinet Members: Don’t Threaten Reporters

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Intolerable.

I’ll make this simple, and get right to the point: any Cabinet member who threatens a reporter with physical violence for doing the job journalists are supposed to do should be fired. No exceptions. Moreover, that should be obvious and beyond debate.

Ken Salazar, the Secretary of the Interior, didn’t like a question he was asked by Colorado Springs Gazette reporter Dave Philipps. The investigative reporter had tried to reach Salazar for months through his press secretary seeking a comment on a story Philipps had written about how a Colorado man with business connections to Salazar had been sold hundreds of federally protected wild horses that have subsequently vanished. The man is under investigation, and one of his businesses is slaughtering horses, not that any of this is germane to how Salazar treated Phillipps.  When Philipps began asking Salazar about the program and possible personal ties he had to the wild horse buyer now under investigation, Salazar abruptly ended the interview. He then pushed The Gazette’s camera aside, got nose to nose with the reporter, and said, pointing, “Don’t you ever…you know what, you do that again… I’ll punch you out.” Continue reading →

Senator Vitter Thinks Bribery and Extortion Are Ethical

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

"...and U.S. Senators..."

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was initially restricted to a lower salary than other Cabinet members because he was a U.S. Senator when the salaries were raised. The Constitution bars members of the House and Senate from appointment to any U.S. office where compensation was increased during the lawmaker’s term. (Did you know that? I didn’t.)  President George W. Bush in 2008 signed legislation rolling back the Interior Secretary’s salary so that President Obama Salazar could appoint Salazar.

Once Salazar joined the Obama Cabinet, however, he was eligible for a raise. But Senator David Vitter (R-La.) saw a chance for some leverage. He wrote Salazar to inform him that he would place a hold on the bill to raise his salary until Salazar agreed to approve six new deep-water oil drilling permits every month. In effect, Vitter threatened to withhold over $19,000 in salary that Salazar had every right to receive in order to force him to take the actions Vitter favored. How does Vitter’s conduct differ from offering a bribe? No at all, as far as I can see. How does it differ from extortion? Not much. Vitter was trying to force a Cabinet officer make decisions motivated by his own financial interest rather than what he believed was in the best interest of the nation. He was creating an unethical conflict of interest. Continue reading →

Update: The King Memorial Quote Mess Is Officially A Fiasco

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

The Martin Luther King Memorial Commission meets to address the quote controversy

When we last left the star-crossed Martin Luther King Memorial on the National Mall, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar had boldly declared that the Interior Department was ordering the embarrassing misquotation of the martyred civil rights leader changed, so he would not sound to future generations like “an arrogant twit,” in poet Maya Angelou’s neat phrasing. Now a war of words and intentions has broken out, with Salazar declaring that the entire made-up quotation (“I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.”—something King never said, and probably never thought, either) had to be removed, and the correct quote (“…if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.”) added, and Ed Jackson, the architect who oversaw the memorial’s development for years, saying that Salazar’s plan would wreck the structure. Asked if there was any way to remove the inscription from the memorial without destroying it, Jackson answered, “No.” Continue reading →

Ethics Hero AND Ethics Dunce: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar scores a rare twin honor: He is an Ethics Dunce and an Ethics Hero in the same week.

Occupier, or just a vistor, Mr. Secretary?

First the good news, the Ethics Hero part.  Salazar has given the National Park Service  30 days to fix the inaccurate, misleading and truncated quotation on the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial. He did this after giving the inept King Memorial Foundation plenty of time to do its job. It didn’t, and he took the initiative. Harry Johnson, president of the Foundation, told the AP he wasn’t sure what changes could be made. Well, how about using a real quote instead of a made-up one that makes Martin Luthor King sound like a preening Newt Gingrich?

Chiseled into the monument’s left flank because there wasn’t room for the actual quote is “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.” What King really said in a 1968  speech was: “If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter.” When Maya Angelou and others complained that the pompous-sounding non-quote make King sound like a boasting egotist (and one speaking from the grave!), the Foundation shrugged and erected the monument unchanged. Continue reading →