Bob Stone on Ethics
Bob Stone is an internationally known author and speaker on ethical leadership, leading change, and reinventing government. He teaches ethics and business at the University of Redlands and formerly served on the Governing Council of the Ukleja Center for Ethical Leadership at California State University, Long Beach. Read more about Bob Stone...
Mitt Romney: Liar, liar, pants on fire. Said he didn’t care about poor people, now brushes it off as “I misspoke”
Mitt Romney said he’s not concerned about the very poor because they have a safety net. And if the safety net needs repair he’ll fix it.
This proves he doesn’t care. If he thinks the safety net is OK he’s out of touch, and his out-of-touchness proves his lack of concern.
The safety net leaves millions of minimum- or low-wage earners without enough to feed, clothe, and shelter their families, leaves them dependent on emergency room visits for any medical care, and—if they’ve been unemployed for a long time—facing termination of their unemployment checks. And candidate Romney, along with nearly unanimous Republican Senators and members of Congress, are reflexively opposed to “fixing” the safety net.
But appearing so heartless can be costly to a Presidential candidate. So Romney tried to lie his way out of it, saying he misspoke. But he didn’t misspeak. Misspeaking is when I call my granddaughter by her sister’s name. Misspeaking is when John McCain tells a Romney gathering that he’s confident that President Obama will cure the nation’s ills. Misspeaking is not saying something, then when challenged explaining what you said. He didn’t misspeak.
The interview that got Romney into this mess went like this:
The candidate told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien on Wednesday that he’s “not concerned about the very poor,” explaining that he’s concerned about the middle class.
“I’m in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.”
O’Brien gave him a chance to explain:
“I know I said last question, but I have to ask you. You just said ‘I’m not concerned about the very poor because they have a safety net,’ and I think there are lots of poor Americans who are struggling who would say, that sounds odd. Can you explain that?”
Romney made it clear that he meant what he said:
“Well, you had to finish the sentence, Soledad. I said, I’m not concerned about the very poor that have a safety net, but if it has holes in it, I will repair them.”
Yesterday Romney told Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston that he didn’t mean any such thing.
“It was a misstatement. I misspoke. I’ve said something that is similar to that but quite acceptable for a long time. And you know when you do I don’t know how many thousands of interviews now and then you may get it wrong. And I misspoke. Plain and simple.
When Mel Gibson and Michael Richards let loose with vile racist and anti-Semitic rants they tried to lie their way out of it: “I misspoke.” They didn’t misspeak. Neither did Romney.
Redskins new defensive backs coach Raheem Morris is an ethical winner
Hollywood pioneer Samuel Goldwyn famously said of a colleague he admired, “His verbal contract is worth more than the paper it’s written on.”
This ‘Goldwynism’ applies to new Washington Redskins defensive backs coach, Raheem Morris, who verbally accepted a Washington offer on January 11. The very next day Morris was offered the job of defensive coordinator by the Minnesota Vikings.
Morris turned down the bigger, and likely much more lucrative, Minnesota offer, explaining,
“I believe that in this game, all you have is your word and your tape, and I gave these guys my word, and I wanted to come here and help them this year, and I was going to do it.
Keeping your commitment, even when—or especially when—it costs you a lot of money—is a central tenet of ethics. The Redskins have a winner in Morris.
Santorum explains his craven response to supporter calling Obama “avowed Muslim” and foreigner
Rick Santorum explained today why he didn’t challenge the woman who, at a Santorum town hall yesterday, pronounced President Obama a foreigner and a Muslim.
“I’ve said repeatedly that President Obama is not a Muslim and he’s qualified. It’s not my responsibility to defend the President. I’m not here to defend the President against scurrilous attacks. It’s not my job, it’s yours [referring to the media]. It’s your responsibility to defend the president, not mine. When the media and others say lies about me and call me names and do things … it’s OK and, in fact, it’s promoted and encouraged and made fun of when we do it. Stop it.”
Santorum was being questioned on MSNBC’s Morning Joe program by political writer John Heilemann, who then pointed out that John McCain had responded honorably in a similar episode during the 2008 campaign. Santorum responded indignantly.
“It’s very clear. I am not John McCain. I’ve never been like John McCain. I’m not running as a candidate who’s anything like John McCain.”
Amen.
Santorum just smiles as supporter calls Obama “avowed Muslim” and foreigner
Rick Santorum is no John McCain. I can’t imagine the right word for Santorum—spineless? craven? sleazy? When a woman at a McCain rally in 2008 started to go off on Obama, saying,
“I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him and he’s, uh . . ., he’s an Arab.”
McCain shook his head and scolded her
“No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man and citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign’s all about. He’s not [an Arab].”
McCain’s rejoinder drew some boos and “C’mon, John” from the crowd, but McCain had done the ethical thing.
Today at a Santorum town hall in Florida one of his fans raised her hand in the Q&A period:
“I never refer to Obama as President Obama because legally he is not.”
Laughter and cheers from the crowd, and a smile from the candidate. The woman went on.
“He constantly says that our Constitution is passé and he totally ignores it. He does what he damn well pleases. He’s an avowed Muslim.”
Applause from the crowd, a continued smile from Santorum. She got to her question:
“Why isn’t something being done to get him out of our government? He has no legal right to be calling himself President.”
Did Santorum give her a lesson on citizenship and civility? You judge—here’s his answer:
“Well, yeah! I’m doing my best to try to get him out of there.”
I guess we shouldn’t expect honorable behavior from someone who has compared homosexuality to man-on-child or man-on-dog sex.
Pass the Dream Act, give Luis Luna and 300,000 like him a chance at citizenship. Obama and Gingrich favor, Romney opposes
Luis Luna, 20, was an illegal immigrant, smuggled here from Mexico at 3. The LA Times tells his story. Luis did well in school, graduated, got engaged to his high school sweetheart, got a job, then got pulled over while on the way to work for a broken headlight. He had no driver’s license, Immigration was called in, and Luis was deported to Mexico.
He tried to get back by riding the undercarriage of a boxcar, scant inches above the train roadbed, until the train stopped at a U.S. border checkpoint, where a German Shepherd sniffed him out, sank his teeth into Luis’s ribcage, and dragged him out. Luis is now homeless in Nogales, hoping to find a way legally to return to his girlfriend-now-wife, his family, friends, and the only life he’s ever known.
Luis’s tragedy could have been precluded under the Dream Act, which would provide temporary residency and a possible path to citizenship to Luis and hundreds of thousands like him who were brought here as small children and have played by the rules ever since.
President Obama supports the Dream Act, which passed the House last year but failed to get the 60 votes needed to avert a filibuster in the Senate. Mitt Romney says he would veto it, Newt Gingrich says he supports it—a principled position that is costing him dearly with Republican primary voters.
Perry says Turkey’s leaders are Islamic terrorists, links Turkey to Iran and Syria; State Department “absolutely and fundamentally” disagrees
Sometimes when a politician says something stupid it’s just something stupid. But Rick Perry’s remarks at last night’s Republican debate are fifteen yards beyond stupid. They’re dangerous and unethical.
Unethical because a Presidential candidate should know something before he maligns an American ally—or anyone, come to think of it. Thoughtless or ignorant words damage America’s power in the world
Debate moderator Bret Baier asked Perry whether he thought Turkey should continue to be part of NATO.
Perry jumped in by calling Turkey’s leaders “Islamic terrorists.”
“Well, obviously when you have a country that is being ruled by, what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists, when you start seeing that type of activity against their own citizens, then yes, not only is it time for us to have a conversation about whether or not they belong to be in NATO, but it’s time for the United States, when we look at their foreign aid, to go to zero with it.”
Perry further promised to send a message to “countries like Iran and Syria and Turkey” that the United States is serious and will have to be dealt with.
The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported that the Foreign Ministry condemned Perry’s remarks.
The current Turkish government deserves criticism in a number of areas (Stay tuned!), but to call them terrorists or to link them to Iran and Syria is wildly wrong and does America no good. Neither does Gov. Perry, or the people who even imagine him as President. The only mitigating factor is the breathtaking ignorance the governor of America’s second largest state showed.
Perry is standing by his stupidity.
Reflections on Martin Luther King, Jr., and on heroism
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It’s been a holiday in all fifty states only since 2000, when Utah finally adopted it. MLK was a hero, and the holiday dedicated to him is a good time to reflect on his life and on the meaning—and especially the limits—of being a hero.
If we venerate some of our Presidents for their accomplishments, then we surely should venerate King. He arguably did more to make America a better nation than anyone since Lincoln. He dreamt that “my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
America is not that nation yet—not quite—but we’ve progressed awfully close to it since King’s 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial. And the progress has been largely inspired by King. His insistence on non-violence sealed the commitment of African-Americans to it, and his description of what justice meant captured the conscience and then the heart of much of white America.
Yet when his birthday was first proposed as a national holiday in 1979—just eleven years after his death—it was so controversial that it failed to win a majority vote in the House of Representatives, and it took another twenty-one years for the fiftieth state to recognize it. Many reasons have been cited for the resistance, but surely a major reason is doubts about King’s character.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover considered King a communist and an adulterer and a threat to our democracy. He was an adulterer, a strong and bitter opponent of the war in Vietnam, and an advocate for a vision of economic justice that many thought was a rejection of American capitalism. John McCain for one was a bitter opponent of a holiday honoring King.
Those who opposed a King holiday said America honors heroes, and King was no hero. But they were wrong. They had a flawed view of what heroism means. Jack Marshall explains, in his EthicsAlarms.com blog, why flawed people like Thomas Jefferson, Babe Ruth, and JFK
were still heroes; they just weren’t heroes all the time, in every aspect of their lives. The Greeks knew it and Shakespeare knew it: nobody’s perfect. That doesn’t mean that we can’t admire the best of someone’s accomplishments and conduct. We can. We should.
King is a hero for his leadership of the non-violent struggle that dramatically expanded civil rights in America, and we should revere him for that, with no need to diminish his accomplishments by dwelling excessively on his human flaws.
He described his dream in his Lincoln Memorial speech:
I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
On Martin Luther King , Jr Day we should reflect on King’s dream, and on the distance we still have to travel to make it reality.
Blame the Bill of Rights, not the Roberts Court, for allowing corporations undue influence on elections
Millions of Americans, especially on the Left, are scornful of the ruling of the Supreme Court in 2010 regarding Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In that ruling the Court overturned the provision of McCain-Feingold barring corporations and unions from paying for political ads made independently of candidate campaigns.
The ruling opened the door to unlimited expenditures by corporations and unions on behalf of candidates for office. It’s opened the floodgates to anonymous negative ads, and the Left is in high dudgeon.They have mischaracterized the Court’s ruling as “corporations are people and have the rights of people.” This piece of fiction has been enshrined in the dogma of the Left by Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Rachel Maddow.
What nonsense!
As much as one may hate the result of the Court’s ruling, one can’t get beyond the Court’s reasoning: The First Amendment to the Constitution is pretty straightforward:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
In a 1959 ruling, Justice Hugo Black wrote, concurring with an opinion that overturned an obscenity conviction, that the First Amendment leaves no room for evasion:
That Amendment provides, in simple words, that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” I read “no law . . . abridging” to mean no law abridging.
The Roberts Court reached the same unavoidable conclusion in 2010. Not because they’re conservative, but because that’s what our Bill of Rights demands. Four Justices disagreed because of the likely pernicious effect on our politics. I too decry the effect of Citizens United. But that’s the Constitution that all our government officials are sworn to defend.
Americans may amend it but we may not ignore it.
My ten favorite posts of 2011
There were 112 Ethics Bob posts in 2011, and 14,000 page views. Here are my ten favorites:
- Ex-Auburn Prof Jim Gundlach gets a mythical Sam Goldwyn award* for speaking truth to power—to Auburn football http://goo.gl/x3ro4
- Turks trust strangers, and the trust is repaid http://goo.gl/4UBW6
- Drew Brees: ethics hero and football hero. He lives by “If not me, who? http://goo.gl/RMzsV
- Tim Pawlenty announces for President, grabs third rail of Iowa politics, earns mythical Edmund Burke Award. http://goo.gl/yBdXS
- Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) defends Muslim judge Sohail Mohammed, calls opponents “crazies.” Hooray for an ethics hero http://goo.gl/KtCCQ
- Three cheers for Bret Baier, Chris Wallace, and Byron York of Fox News, and for Rachel Maddow of MSNBC http://goo.gl/gsXAx
- Ethics: I’m giving it away http://goo.gl/Rl1jB
- LSU Tigers Coach Les Miles gets a mythical Chip Kelly Award* for suspending three stars for the big game with Auburn http://goo.gl/rjns5
- Report from Zuccotti Park, and what’s next for Occupy Wall Street http://goo.gl/Sk5sV
- Rose Bowl, BCS Bowl, Ethics Bowl http://goo.gl/MxGYu
- The lesson from Penn State http://goo.gl/Tnn03
Israeli religious fanatics assault a female soldier for not moving to the back of the bus
Israelis staged a massive rally Thursday to protest the assault by ultra-religious Haredim on eight-year-old Naama Margolese, and she was welcomed back to school after the Hanukah break by the Education Minister and several members of parliament. Good.
Meanwhile 15 miles away in Jerusalem more Haredim were practicing their religion, threatening and shouting “Prostitute!” at Doron Matalon, a female Israeli soldier who refused to move to the back of the bus.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted the soldier: “This isn’t the first time this has happened, I just asked for help this time,” Matalon said, adding that she had experienced “worse incidents on this line,” including one in which she was shoved off the bus when her stop arrived.”
