Vietnam War

“True Grit” Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

I haven’t seen the remake of “True Grit,” but I know I will, and like many other fans of the original 1969 version, I’m trying to conquer my biases. The latest effort by the usually brilliant Coen brothers creates ethical conflicts for me, and I am hoping I can resolve them right now. Can I be fair to their work, while being loyal to a film that is important to me for many reasons?

The original, 1969 “True Grit” won John Wayne his only Oscar for his self-mocking portrayal of fat, seedy law man Rooster Cogburn, 

who is hired by a young girl to track down her father’s murderer. I love the film; I saw it on the big screen nine times, in fact. Remaking it with anyone else in the starring role feels like an insult, somehow, as if the Duke’s version was somehow inadequate.

Intellectually, I know that’s nonsense. Artists have a right to revisit classic stories and put their personal stamp on them, and they should be encouraged to do it. Every new version of a good story, if done well, will discover some unmined treasure in the material. Why discourage the exploration? Continue reading →

Rahm Emanuel, History and Hyperbole Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

There are times when obvious exaggeration is nothing worse than politeness, nothing more than an expression of admiration and affection. “You’re the best boss anyone ever had,” is in this category, especially when the boss is retiring or dying. But when one is speaking in public about controversial and historical matters involving well-known public figures, the margin between excusable hyperbole and unethical dishonesty or worse is much smaller. Al Gore learned this when he played loyal Vice-President on the day his President was impeached by vote of the House of Representatives. Gore’s statement that Bill Clinton was “a man I believe will be regarded in the history books as one of our greatest Presidents” was intended as supportive, but interpreted as a toadying endorsement of Clinton’s unsavory and dishonest conduct, impeachable or not. It probably cost Gore the Presidency.

Worse yet was Trent Lott’s clumsy effort to praise the ancient, infirm and mentally failing Sen. Strom Thurmond at his 100th birthday party. Lott said, “I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have all these problems over all these years, either.” Thurmond, running on the Dixiecrat ticket, had opposed segregation, and Lott’s comment, less fact than flattery, made him sound like he longed for the days of Jim Crow and “white only”rest rooms. The lessons of these hyperbolic gaffes are similar: if the well-intentioned compliment concerns a public figure in historical context, historical exaggerations either appear to be unjust to history or its important figures, seem to make inappropriate value judgments, or come off as a blatant effort to mislead the public.

Rahm Emanuel hit the Trifecta with his fawning farewell to President Obama, as he left the White House to run for Mayor of Chicago. Obama, he said, is “the toughest leader any country could ask for, in the toughest times any president has ever faced.”

Wow. Continue reading →

Attack Ad Ethics: Rep. Alan Grayson, Sinking to Expectations

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Rep. Alan Grayson (D) of Florida has his defenders, which means you can pretty much forget about fair play when you are dealing with any of them, too. The Florida Congressman is infamous for saying and repeating outrageous things about opponents and refusing to acknowledge that he was wrong or inappropriate. As I have written here often, some unethical conduct is so egregious that it precludes the possibility of it being an aberration or a mistake, and Grayson could be the poster boy for that principle. He has little regard for fairness, civility and truth, if defying any of these serves his purposes. Thus it is both unsurprising and comforting that the most unethical attack ad in this early campaign season come from him—comforting, because it proves the point. For Alan Grayson, unfair and dishonest attacks aren’t mistakes. They are a habit.

In a TV spot called “Draft Dodger, Grayson accuses his opponent of evading the Vietnam War draft, because “he doesn’t love this country.” Continue reading →

Blumenthal’s Lies and Professional Discipline

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

I know I’m harping on Richard Blumenthal, but:

An Illinois attorney has just been suspended from the practice of law for three years for using a doctored resume to obtain his job at a big law firm.

Richard Blumenthal has doctored his resume, in public, by leading voters and media to believe he was a Vietnam veteran, when he was not. He is seeking a job, not with a law firm, but in the U.S. Senate.

The Illinois attorney has been found unfit for the practice of law by dint of his dishonest conduct, which raises doubts about his trustworthiness. Is filling out a resume to acquire a legal job itself the practice of law? No. Can anyone think of a reason why it is less indicative of bad character for a lawyer to fabricate credentials in pursuit of a non-legal job (albeit for a position that makes laws!) than a legal one? I can’t. That would seem to be an absurd distinction. Lying to the hiring partner at a law firm is worse than lying to the citizens of Connecticut? Blumenthal is the State Attorney General: he works for the people of Connecticut; they are his clients!  His lie is certainly worse.

Forget about not voting him into the Senate. Connecticut should work on kicking Richard Blumenthal out of the Attorney General’s office.

More on Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut’s Lying Attorney General

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Now that we know a little bit more about Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Attorney General whose pursuit of a U.S. Senate seat has him periodically masquerading as a Vietnam War veteran, it is clear that simply defeating him at the polls isn’t enough. He should be impeached as Attorney General, and deserves professional discipline from the Connecticut Bar as well. Why? Well, he’s an unrepentant serial liar on a grand scale. Lawyers, including Attorney Generals, are prohibited from engaging in dishonesty, misrepresentation, fraud and deceit, and it is professional misconduct when this rises to a level that calls a lawyer’s trustworthiness and fitness to practice law into question. Does pretending to have credentials, especially military combat experience, that you do not have in order to get a job reach this level?

Of course it does. Continue reading →

Lying Senate Candidate Blumenthal: Not One Single Vote

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“Senate Hopeful Misspoke About Service” headlines the Daily Beast. “Candidate’s Words on Vietnam Service Differ From History,” announces the New York Times, which broke the story. In a case like this, such delicate phrasing amounts to journalistic deceit. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the Democratic candidate for the open Senate seat soon to be vacated by Chris Dodd, has been lying his head off, claiming that he served in Vietnam when he did not. He didn’t “misspeak,” and there isn’t any controversy about differing versions of history. He is a lair, and his lies have been deliberate, calculated, and despicable. Continue reading →

The Ethics of Those “Thousand Words”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The site BravoBox has a provocative post on an ever-present ethical issue on print journalism that has been with us for decades and seems to be intensifying: manipulative photo-journalism. Ethics watch-dogs come down hard on images that are photoshopped or deceptively cropped, but a publication’s choice of photo can be equally unfair when the picture hasn’t been altered at all.

A photo doesn’t have to be manipulated to be manipulative. If a picture is indeed “worth a thousand words”—and many are— responsible journalists and editor have a duty  to choose those words with as much attention to even-handedness and fairness as the words that appear in type.

As BravoBox notes… Continue reading →

The Tragedy of the Climate Change Fiasco

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Americans woke up today to a snow-covered world that might not be getting warmer after all.

You may not hear about it or read about it right away, depending on what your news sources of choice are. Many news organizations and reporters have disgraced themselves, their profession and their professional ethics standards (values trashed: competence, diligence, responsibility, honesty, objectivity, fairness) so thoroughly that they will surely wait as long as possible before admitting they were wrong, if not how wrong they were. But I know where this is going, and it is not going to be good for anyone. Ethics fiascos, a.k.a ethics train wrecks, never are. Continue reading →

Wising Up to The Cognitive Dissonance Game

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Wade Rathke, ACORN’s founder, is using his blog to attack James O’Keefe, whose bizarre pimp-and-prostitute charade exposed the culture of corruption in the organization he created. O’Keefe, who was arrested for trying another sting on a U.S. Senator, certainly deserves criticism. But it is safe to say that Rathke’s purpose is a little different than that of most pundits, for O’Keefe’s stunt hurt his baby. Rathke’s intent, other than  revenge, is to use the power of cognitive dissonance to make ACORN’s ethical failings seem less serious by making making O’Keefe look worse. Continue reading →

“Operation Chokehold” and the Protest Ethics Checklist

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Some disgruntled iPhone users are trying to organize a protest by paralyzing the ATT network with a flood of data this Friday. The mastermind is the so-called “fake Steve Jobs,” Dan Lyons, who calls his protest “Operation Chokehold.”

Blogger Lauren Weinstein [special thanks to Gabe Goldberg for the tip] has effectively identified this juvenile plan for what it is, namely “childish, stupid, irresponsible, and potentially extremely dangerous.”  Continue reading →