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Easy Calls
Quick Takes
on Current Events
- Setting the standard for trivial scandals is undoubtedly Casserolegate, in which a list of his wife's "family recipes" on Senator John McCain's campaign website turned out to contain nothing but copyrighted recipes lifted from the web. The media laughed it off and McCain's spokespeople laughed it off, saying that Cindy McCain had no idea that these recipes were listed under her seal of approval. So, in other words, the entire page was a lie: Cindy didn't really have "family recipes" to pass on; this was just a way to pander to homemakers, entrusted to a low level staffer, and a dim-wit at that. Silly as this is, it doesn't speak well for the campaign's ethics or Cindy McCain's sense of accountability. Message to McCain's team: Don't lie about trivial things, because it can become a habit that leads to lying about important things. Message to Cindy McCain and everyone else: If you put your name on something, you're accountable for it. Even if it's just a collection of phony recipes. [4/24/2008]
- It's a silly issue, but not as silly as you might think: Senator Obama's flag pin. Obama made a point of not wearing the popular lapel decoration earlier in his campaign, stating that it had become "a substitute for real patriotism," which was, in his case, speaking out against the Iraq conflict. Fine: legitimate symbolism, a courageous stand, and certainly preferable to playing the "I support the troops but I don't support what the troops are doing" double-talk favored by too many of his colleagues. But Obama's lack of a flag pin became a lightning rod for right-wing columnists and talk-show hosts, who used it to raise questions about Obama's patriotism and "real feelings about America," especially after his wife's ill-considered comment about being proud of America "for the first time," and Obama's strange twenty-year passiveness in the faces of his pastor's racist America-bashing. So now he's wearing a flag pin. The problem is that once you have said an action is an empty substitute for the real thing, you can't suddenly embrace the conduct when you come under criticism without making the implicit statement that you are doing something you don't really believe in just to quiet the storm. Taking a bold contrarian stand like "I don't need no stinkin' flag pin" to prove my patriotism is an assertion of integrity, courage honesty and ethical character. So what is it when one puts the pin back on as soon as the going gets a little tougher? A small compromise and a minor concession to political realities, or a telling symptom of another politician whose integrity is only as reliable as the next poll results? We shall see. [4/24/2008]
- The Case of the Hirsute Steak: We usually
associate the professional duty of trust with such professionals as
accountants, lawyers and doctors, but the fact is that we put a great
deal of trust in less celebrated professionals whom we deal with on
a regular basis. Cooks, for example. Ryan Kropp, a cook at a Texas Roadhouse,
got annoyed at a patron who complained that his steak was over-done,
and stuffed his own hair into the new steak he prepared to take its
place. Yuk! He is currently facing felony charges, though that won't
make it much easier for his victim to regain trust in the culinary profession.
It also demonstrates that some minimal character requirements need to
be applied even when the job isn't as high-paying and consequential
as lawyer or doctor. Kropp had been arrested before, though not for
stuffing steak with hair, A Code of Ethics for short-order cooks? It
might be time. [4/13/2008]
- Sometimes the law becomes necessary to enforce ethical
habits. Actor Nicholas Cage (most recently starring in the "National
Treasure" movies and the "Ghost Rider" lark: Cage has
settled into his "What the hell, it's a paycheck!" stage…)
just successfully sued Kathleen Turner (a once-terrific actress
just trying to stay solvent and famous) for claiming in her memoir,
"Send Yourself Roses," that Cage had twice been arrested for
drunken driving and had stolen a dog. It should be obvious, but apparently
not: spicing up your published recollections with made up stuff is bad
enough, but making up stories that impugn a colleague's character and
conduct is a major ethics violation that involves not merely breaking
the Golden Rule but complete ignorance of it. Even if Turner erroneously
believed what she wrote, she had an obligation to check her facts before
labeling Cage a dog-stealer and a drunk driver. Turner, like just about
every other movie star, has complained about vicious lies and rumors
printed in the tabloids; how can she justify doing the same to Cage?
Well, she couldn't. Turner admitted there was no truth in the stories,
Cage is getting unspecified damages (which he will forward to charity)
and the book will be corrected. And just maybe an ethical lesson will
be learned. [4/13/2008]
- The problem with single-minded zealots is that they can
lose the ability to empathize with others who do not share their passions,
and do needless harm to those who are completely irrelevant to their
objectives. And so it was that a hoard of pro-life protestors
disrupted the Hollywood premiere of "Horton Hears a Who!" Some genius
figured out that the movie's core message of "A person's a person, no
matter how small" (courtesy of Theodore Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) could
be applied to the anti-abortion cause. That's swell, but the children
who were looking forward to seeing an uninterrupted performance of a
kids movie don't have a dog in this hunt, and shouldn't have been made
the victims of a protest that was ill-timed, unfair, irresponsible and
pointlessly obnoxious. A protest has to be able to justify the harm
it does to bystanders with sufficiently significant and positive results,
and this one didn't, except perhaps to spawn a new slogan, "An inconsiderate
jerk's a jerk, no matter how well-intentioned."[4/13/2008]
- Big story, huge implications, but ethically, a very Easy Call. The Los Angeles Times, which has been running through editors like Kleenex tissues as it tries to cut expenses at the apparent cost of competence and credibility, ran a sensational story about the death of rapper Tupak Shakur that was based on fake documents. Once again it was the website "The Smoking Gun" that set the record straight: the documents appear to have been the work of an imprisoned con-man with a lifetime habit of fraud and audacious lying. Newspapers are supposed to check and double check such things, but like weekly news magazines and TV network news shows, they are media dinosaurs trying to do anything to avoid extinction. So they cut corners, eliminate jobs and checkpoints, and what is the result? "60 Minutes" attacks a President based on a forged document that was never authenticated. The New York Times runs a barely-sourced front-page sex-scandal story about what some of John McCain's aides "were worried about." The New Republic publishes stories of callous conduct by American soldiers in Iraq by an anonymous "diarist," who turns out to be 1) the husband of a staffer and 2) making things up. These and other embarrassments by the mainstream media shows what happens when a powerful non-ethical considerations like staying competitive in a changing business cause an organization to put professional ethics on the back-burner. Once it is there, other non-ethical and even unethical influences like political biases, ambition and cultural prejudice can run amuck. The lesson of this dismaying series of mainstream media betrayals of the public trust is this: there are no newspapers, network news shows, or periodicals that are any more trustworthy than the internet sources that drove them all to desperation. There are undoubtedly some of them that have maintained high ethical standards, but we cannot know what they are, and worse, we cannot assume that they won't abandon those standards tomorrow. [3/27/2008]
- Here is what Bill Clinton, speaking to a group of veterans in Charlotte, N.C. on behalf of his wife’s candidacy, said: "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics." Now, some supporters of Sen. Barack Obama are accusing the former president and charter member of the Ethics Scoreboard “Liar of the Month” Hall of Fame of insinuating, ever so cleverly and deceitfully, that his wife’s opponent isn’t a person who loves and is devoted to the interest of this country. “Horrors!! Bill Clinton suggest something like that? How can anyone think such a thing?” has been the response of Team Clinton. This Easy Call is too easy: of course that’s what Clinton was insinuating, and yes, it is unfair, dishonest and unethical. It is classic deceit: there is nothing wrong with the sentiment or the words, for everyone thinks that would “be a great thing.” But since the comment was made in the context of arguing that his wife is the better candidate to face unquestioned patriot John McCain, there is only one possible interpretation of Clinton’s intent, which was to make those in doubt think, “Hmmmm…what do I really know about that guy who was born a Muslim and whose middle name is Hussein? And didn’t I read somewhere that his mentor and advisor said, ‘God damn America’?” Nobody knows how to make words tap-dance better than Mr. “It depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.” Fortunately, people are finally beginning to recognize his handiwork for what it is. [3/26/2008]
- It is all but certain that neither Michigan nor Florida will give its Democrats a "do-over" so that delegates from those states can be chosen in a fair primary. Now there is only one ethical answer to the burning question of whether Hillary Clinton's victories in the two rogue primaries that were held against the rules of the Democratic National Committee should provide her with the additional delegates from those states she so desperately needs: no. The candidates did not campaign in those states and she alone allowed her name to appear on the ballot in Michigan. The fact that thousands of people voted? Irrelevant. The fact that they are major states with a major stake in a battle for the Democratic nomination that is, as Dan Rather liked to say, "as tight as a too-small bathing suit on a too-long ride home from the beach" ? Beside the point. The Democratic Party declared that those primaries wouldn't count before they took place. All the candidates knew it, and pledged to abide by the ruling. Senator Clinton's advocates, well-trained in "ends justify the means" theology, have been floating all manner of arguments to try to validate the voting results retroactively. That's called changing the rules after the game has been played, a.k.a. "cheating." The Party has endorsed this tactic before, notably when it tried to change the definition of what counted as a valid ballot in Florida back in 2000, so it can't get too high up on its horse. But giving Mrs. Clinton delegates that Senator Obama did not compete for is still unfair and wrong. [3/21/2008]
- In the wake of Eliot Spitzer's resignation as governor of New York, there has been the predictable flurry of published opinions that prostitution, as a "victimless crime," should not be a crime at all. It is an irresponsible and willfully ignorant position. Victimless? Look at video footage of the stricken face of Spitzer's wife as she heard her husband admit his prostitution habit. Check the horrendous public health record of AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases acquired or spread through the practice of prostitution. Listen to interviews of the desperate, abused women in "the life," and hear how it traps runaways, the poor and the abandoned in an existence based upon exploitation and degradation by men with money and power. Prostitution has wrecked lives and families for centuries, and making it legal would not stop that one bit. Legalization would, however, make a societal statement that it is okay…a statement that usually leads to more of the conduct involved. Well, nothing about prostitution and its effects are "okay." The fact that laws have not eliminated it does not mean that we should eliminate the laws. And calling a crime "victimless" that harms so many is indistinguishable from a lie. [3/17/2008]
- The Scoreboard is going to be moderate in its praise
of Sen. John McCain's habitual ethical decency, lest
he show up too regularly in the Ethics Hero category and threaten the
Scoreboard's claim to non-partisanship. But it's an Easy Call to praise
McCain for repudiating the remarks of Ohio talk-show fire-breather Bill
Cunningham, an uncivil, shrill and mean-spirited man even by the abysmal
standards of conservative talk radio, who warmed up McCain's crowd in
Cincinnati with anti-Obama vitriol, including the slimy tactic, lately
a favorite of the Angry Right, of calling the Illinois Senator by his
unfortunate middle name, Hussein. Yes slimy, because the clear objective
is to associate Obama, an American and a patriot, with radical Muslims
in the minds of those members of the American public who are bigoted,
ignorant, racist, or terrified---a very large group, unfortunately.
Cunningham has disingenuously protested that there can be nothing wrong
with calling someone by his legal name, but he knows what he is doing,
and McCain wasn't about to buy into his juvenile tricks. So after his
campaign rally, Senator McCain immediately gave a press conference in
which he said: "It's my understanding that before I came in here
a person who was on the program before I spoke made some disparaging
remarks about my two colleagues in the Senate, Senator Obama and Senator
Clinton. I have repeatedly stated my respect for Senator Obama and Senator
Clinton, that I will treat them with respect. I will call them 'Senator.'
We will have a respectful debate, as I have said on hundreds of occasions.
I regret any comments that may have been made about these two individuals
who are honorable Americans…Whatever suggestion that was made that was
any way disparaging to the integrity, character, honesty of either Senator
Obama or Senator Clinton was wrong. I condemn it, and if I have any
responsibility, I will take the responsibility, and I apologize for
it." McCain emphasized that it was not appropriate to invoke Mr.
Obama's middle name in the course of the campaign, saying, "I absolutely
repudiate such comments. It will never happen again." Cunningham was
furious, and later said that he would switch his support to Hillary
Clinton. I'm sure she will be thrilled. [3/2/2008]
Read "Easy Calls" from previous months
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
E-mail: ProEthics President