partisanship

“Lie of the Year”? Hardly.

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

PolitiFact, the political fact-checking website, has once again announced its “Lie of the Year”:

“PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen “government takeover of health care” as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats’ shellacking in the November elections. Readers of PolitiFact, the St. Petersburg Times’ independent fact-checking website, also chose it as the year’s most significant falsehood by an overwhelming margin. (Their second-place choice was Rep. Michele Bachmann’s claim that Obama was going to spend $200 million a day on a trip to India, a falsity that still sprouts.)”

This tells us a lot about PolitiFact. Continue reading →

Flunking the Keith Olbermann Test

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Every so often there is a news story that exposes the serious deficiencies in the ethics comprehension in the public and the media. The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal was one such story; Major League Baseball’s steroid controversy was another. I confess: I didn’t see the Keith Olbermann suspension for making political donations as having the potential to be another test of ethical competence, but it is. And almost everyone is flunking it.

The facts of the Olbermann incident are deceptively simple. The rant-prone, self-annointed champion of the Angry Left violated an NBC ethics policy that forbade its reporters and commentators from making political contributions, on the theory, absurd when applied to Olbermann,  that it compromises their reputation for objectivity. Olbermann has no objectivity, or reputation for it either. Nonetheless, he intentionally and flagrantly violated his employer’s policy. That alone justifies his suspension, whether or not the policy is idiotic. And it is.

But Olbermann’s fans and critics alike are all over the internet attaching rationalizations and flawed ethical reasoning to the episode. Such as: Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Jon Stewart

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

When Jon Stewart announced his “Rally to Restore Sanity on the Mall” in support of a return to civility and moderation in politics, many, if not most, assumed that he would be hosting a boisterous, funny, pointedly partisan rally in favor of progressive policies, with the secondary objective of putting the Tea Party movement in its place—sitting in a corner wearing a dunce cap. Continue reading →

Integrity Check for Barack Obama

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The Los Angeles Times compared the themes and tones of President Obama’s speeches in 2008 and now, again on the campaign trail but facing a very different set of challenges. What they discovered was both provocative and depressing:

“His message of national unity and reconciliation had been replaced by a stark warning against cynical Republican tactics, vague threats to America’s political system and the urgent need to keep the GOP marginalized. There was less hope, more fear…
Obama in Portland suggested that “foreign-controlled corporations” were bankrolling a “misleading, negative” ad campaign that serves Republicans, but offered no evidence.”We don’t know,” he said. Continue reading →

How Partisanship Corrupts Us All At Election Time

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

The upcoming election, among other horrible things, will stand as a landmark of ethical corruption, as parties, news sources and voters will have thoroughly abandoned integrity and weakened their core values by excusing damning behavior from their favored candidates, behavior that, if honestly and objectively evaluated, should disqualify them from any office of trust.

We have already seen disturbing examples of this phenomenon in such embarrassing displays as Rep. Charles Rangel’s birthday celebration, as major Democrats lined up to give tribute to a Congressman who has abandoned multiple ethical duties, including an absolute disgrace for any Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, willful tax evasion. Rather than take a stand for honest government and representatives the public can believe in, partisan supporters are blaming Rangel’s self-made problems on Republican attacks, as if they made Charlie do it all at gunpoint.

The same theme is being echoed by conservatives on talk radio, who are making the case that the ridiculous Christine O’Donnell, who has undeniably misused campaign funds and misrepresented her educational background numerous times and ways, is being criticized for these “errors” because of a “media double-standard.” The only way to interpret such a defense is that the people making it believe all lies, misuse of donations and efforts to mislead the public are excusable if the press has ever ignored them when the transgressor was from the other party. Or they really don’t believe that, but are saying that they do. Either way, they are corrupt. Continue reading →

The Sanford Bishop Saga: Pondering the Ethical Implications of Another Congressional Black Caucus Scholarship Cheat

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

At this point, anyone who is surprised to learn that a member of the Congressional Black Caucus has been caught violating basic principles of ethics has not been paying attention. The Caucus has systematically corrupted itself by excusing blatant misconduct by its members for so long, reasoning—wrongly—that it is more important for black members of Congress to show loyalty and solidarity with their race than to be role models and honest public servants. Sadly, it would be newsworthy to learn that there is a CBC member who is passionate about holding public servants to a high level of trustworthiness. There apparently are no such members, however. If there were some, they would have resigned from an organization that reflexively defends black Representatives who abuse their power, position and trust (thus endorsing unethical conduct) and cries racism when anyone outside the Caucus, including the House Ethics Committee, criticizes the obvious.

Perhaps this is why the revelation that Rep. Stanford Bishop (D-GA.) distributed scholarship funds intended for needy students in his district to family members and political cronies received so little media attention. Continue reading →

Chris Plante and the Absurd, Illogical, and Ubiquitous “Favorite Child” Rationalization

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I apologize at the outset to Chris Plante, a Washington D.C. market conservative radio talk show host, who is far from the only individual to employ the “Favorite Child” rationalization, or even its most egregious user. Just about everybody uses this logic-free argument these days; you can hear it on TV, read it in the blogosphere, and be assaulted with it by your friends. Plante was unlucky enough to have me listening to his show when he went off into a full-throated “Favorite Child” rant in response to a caller who was troubled by the fact that Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party Senate candidate from Delaware whom Plante had extolled, has a history of lying, saying strange things, and mishandling funds-–a quite reasonable concern when a candidate is running on a platform of honor, integrity, and fiscal responsibility. Continue reading →

Ethics Blindness: Why Is The Media Minimizing the Etheridge Assault?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The Bob Etheridge street mugging story seems poised to join the coverage of Van Jones and ACORN as another depressing example of the mainstream media’s abandonment of objectivity, responsibility and ethical priorities.

Today, the day after a video surfaced showing North Carolina Congressman Bob Etheridge grabbing, restraining, and wrapping his hand around the neck of a young man who dared to ask him a question on a Washington D.C. sidewalk, “The Daily Beast’s” #4 story was the revelation that former Ebay CEO and current G.O.P. candidate for governor of California once shoved an Ebay subordinate in a moment of anger and paid six figures in damages. The story about a sitting U.S. Congressman assaulting a U.S. citizen without provocation on a public street doesn’t appear anywhere in the liberal-leaning news aggregation site’s news summary. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: South Carolina Democrats, Voters and News Media

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Mystery man Alvin Greene upset a respectable, accomplished and well-known opponent in the Democratic primary that decided who would try to unseat South Carolina G.O.P. Senator Jim DeMint in November. Even before the vote, it was widely reported that Greene was unemployed, with no political experience. After the vote and the stunning results, it came to light that in 2009, the victorious Democratic Senatorial nominee asked a young college girl to look at some pornography he had downloaded, leading to an obscenity charge that is still pending. Embarrassed, chagrined and confused by the fact that their standard-bearer appears to be a goof or worse, Democrats are accusing everyone in sight, especially Greene and Republicans, convinced that there must have been a plot, a scam, anything to explain what happened without focusing blame where it belongs: on the Democratic candidates who couldn’t defeat Greene, and the South Carolina voters who elected him. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: CNN

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

CNN has begun to get hammered in the ratings, in the midst of a policy change that has the venerable cable news staking out novel ground: it is being objective. This used to be known as “journalism.” Continue reading →