trustworthiness

Gallup Poll: Trust in Freefall

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The Gallup poll has released its survey of the public’s trust in various institutions, and also shows whether the public’s trust has increased and decreased over the past year. No surprises: virtually every institution has lost public trust, with only the medical system and big business (which hit a historic low in 2009) improving more than a percentage point.

The bottom of the barrel? Why Congress, naturally. You had to ask?

And the biggest drop in trust since last year, by far, goes to the institution of the Presidency, down 15%. No other institution declined half as much.

For a system of government uniquely dependent on mutual trust, this poll is more than bad news. It is a warning. Continue reading →

Lincoln Chafee’s Unethical Attack on Curt Schilling

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Former G.O.P. Senator Lincoln Chafee, now running for Governor of Rhode Island as an Independent, did a despicable thing yesterday, and almost certainly has no idea why it was so wrong.

During a radio interview, Chafee criticized a deal state economic development officials approved with 38 Studios, a game development company owned by former Red Sox pitcher and World Series hero Curt Schilling. Chafee, who is not alone in his criticism of the loan, argued that too much taxpayer money is being entrusted to a company that has no proven track record. That’s a legitimate point. But to hammer home his point, Chafee decided to attack the character, career accomplishments, reputation and integrity of Schilling, a man he has never met…based on nothing at all. Continue reading →

Obama, the Bomber, and the Dangers of Deceit

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I live in the Washington,D.C. area, and I often say that deceit is the official language here. Deceit is an artful form of lying in which literally truthful statements are made in a manner, tone and context designed to deceive others into believing something that is not true, by playing on their assumptions, hopes or trust. Like any other lie, it allows the liar to gain tangible benefits, but with less risk than with a normal lie.  If a deceitful statement is unmasked after an individual has relied on it, the originator of the deceit  can and often does blame the duped listener, who “misunderstood” or “jumped to conclusions.” That’s the special upside of deceit.

The downside of deceit is that it is the calling card of especially slippery people, the preferred device of the verbally adept and the unconscionably manipulative. Effective deceit takes work and talent; show me someone who can be deceitful easily, and I will show you someone whom neither of us should trust.

That is why this statement by President Obama from last week is so discouraging, and perhaps, a tipping point in his relationship to the American people: Continue reading →

Note to Lawyers: Celebrities Have Confidences Too

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Eric Turkewitz, on his New York Personal Injury Law blog, properly and pointedly flags an outrageous instance of a lawyer running to the press with information the professional ethics rules governing lawyers say that he must keep  confidential absent permission to reveal them.

Stuart Goldberg, a Chicago criminal lawyer, was consulted by former child actress-turned-celebrity-bad-girl-turned-prisoner Lindsay Lohan as she sought new counsel to help her with her long-running legal woes. Lohan decided to pay her legal bills to someone else, and it was the first smart move Lindsay has made in a long, long time. Goldberg demonstrated his trustworthiness by dashing over to People Magazine and blabbing about his impressions of Lohan during their meeting as well as the content of their discussion. Continue reading →

Fairness Dilemma:When Should Past Misdeeds Affect Present Trust?

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

The Shirley Sherrod case raises a broader ethical question that surfaces frequently, both in current events and in private life. When, if ever, is it fair to lower one’s opinion and level of trust in an individual’s character based on events that occurred long ago?

In Sherrod’s case, an twenty-four year old incident she cited in a speech before the N.A.A.C.P. as a lesson in how not to behave got her fired from her job at the U.S.D.A., condemned by the N.A.A.C.P., and called a racist by conservative news commentators. This is an easy call: her instance of racial anger and bias should not be held against her for several reasons: Continue reading →

Race, Politics and Cowardice: the Unethical Victimization of Shirley Sherrod

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The forced resignation of Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod, an African-American, is far more significant than it appears. By itself, it is a deplorable example of an innocent citizen being victimized by a convergence of unethical conduct by the media, the Obama Administration, and the N.A.A.C.P. Sherrod’s fate, however, is also a warning, a frightening sign that racial and political tensions are rapidly spinning out of control in America, and that the very institutions we should be able to trust to apply reason, competence, courage and fairness to the issue of race are displaying cowardice, dishonesty and opportunism instead. I hope this is an isolated incident. Everything tells me it is not.

This sudden ethics train wreck developed when Andrew Breitbart, proprietor of the provocative, entertaining and thoroughly Right-leaning website Breitbart.com, posted a grainy video that he said showed Shirley Sherrod, U.S.D.A.’s state director of rural development for Georgia, speaking at a March 27 NAACP Freedom Fund banquet. Continue reading →

CNN’s Ocatavia Nasr: Another Victim of Cognitive Dissonance

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Octavia Nasr, a CNN editor and reporter for two decades, just got her walking papers for a 140-character tweet reading, “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.” The problem is that this particular “giant” was an anti-American, anti-Israeli terrorist who advocated suicide bombings and who encouraged terrorist acts by Hezbollah. In an explanatory blog post that failed to save her job, Nasr blamed the limitations of Twitter, and explained that she didn’t really admire him, just his stance against the abuse of Muslim women.

Maybe. Continue reading →

Thought Police at the Transportation Security Administration

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Leave it to the Government to give us a definitive example of this problem: how do we tell if someone is being unethical or just infuriatingly dumb? Most of the time, of course, we can’t tell.  You can conclude, however, that when high-placed leadership in a government agency, without a legitimate reason for doing so,  takes action that makes those who worry about excessive government intrusion into private thought, speech and conduct quake in their boots, the end result is the same. Such actions cause an erosion of trust, the lifeblood of democratic societies. That makes the conduct dumb and unethical. Continue reading →

Loyalty and Trust: The Difference Between Generals and Pirogies

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I don’t know how you could have missed it, but General McChrystal’s wasn’t the only high-profile firing of an employee for criticizing his superiors. Andrew Kurtz, a young man paid by the Pittsburgh Pirates to put on a giant pirogie suit and compete in The Great Pirogie Race around Pittsburgh’s PNC park in the fifth inning of home games, broke the cardinal rule of employee loyalty by disparaging the team in a post on his blog. The Pirates, who understandably refused to countenance a disloyal pirogie, fired Kurtz and turned his job over to one of the 17 other part-timers who get a $25 check each time they masquerade as a walking, semi-circular, boiled turnover made of unleavened dough. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Geraldo Rivera

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Geraldo Rivera has declared that Rolling Stone Magazine is a journalistic miscreant for not treating comments that weren’t expressly “on the record” as “off the record,” and reporting the derogatory comments of now-deposed Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staff regarding  President Obama, Vice-President Biden, and others.  The upcoming article’s contents, he reasons, do no good and much bad, and are irresponsible…”a terrible thing.”

Some news media reporting in times of war are indeed irresponsible and unethical, as when the New York Times has published the details of intelligence operations. This is not such a case. Continue reading →