Interviewed by Dan Rather on the CBS program “60 Minutes” this past Sunday, former president Bill Clinton, author of the sprawling new autobiography My Life, shifted into mea culpa mode in discussing his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Describing it as “unconscionable” and “a terrible moral error,” he noted that he did it “because I could” — which, as he said, is “the most morally indefensible reason anybody could have for doing anything.”

On that point, he’s right. And while it may seem odd to derive instruction in moral analysis from someone whose acknowledged moral numbness nearly blew apart a presidency, there’s a valuable lesson here. It lies in the three words he uses to explain his behavior: “because I could.”

To adhere to no higher standard of behavior than “because I could” is to abandon any distinction between what I can do and what I ought to do. But ethics is all about ought — about what’s mandated not by law, or history, or self-interest, but by duty. Such wholesale abandonment of the can/ought distinction is, as he says, “morally indefensible.” More accurately, it’s patently amoral, leaving no room for the central discrimination between willful indulgence and ethical constraint — between selfishness and integrity — that defines the moral life.

The lesson, however, is much larger than Clinton. His three-word explanation sheds some useful light on the current news. In the last week:

• Archer Daniels Midland Co. settled a $400 million class-action suit involving alleged price-fixing in the corn sweetener market. Why would corporate executives get involved in price-fixing? Because they could.
• Congressional hearings are examining the $2.25 billion E-rate program, which collects fees from U.S. phone users to provide Internet connections for poor schools. The hearings are examining allegations of egregious waste and fraud among contractors accused of pocketing millions as they sold Hummer-scale systems to districts that had only Chevy-size applications. Why would corporate sales people get so greedy? Because they could.
• More than a dozen nonprofit hospitals have been targeted by plaintiffs’ lawyers for charging patients without insurance many times the costs billed for similar procedures for insured patients. Why would hospital managers do such things? Because they could.
• After Darleen Druyun pleaded guilty in April to negotiating a job with Boeing while overseeing billions of dollars of Boeing contracts from her position at the Pentagon, she is cooperating with prosecutors in a probe of corruption that already has cost former Boeing CEO Philip Condit his job. Why would Ms. Druyan and Boeing officials agree to such a cozy arrangement? Because they could.

Read the daily papers with your corruption filter in place, in other words, and you’ll daily find tales of those who, having no standard in place stronger than “because I could,” fell into breaches of integrity. Then notice what these stories have in common with Clinton’s escapades: Each concerns people occupying positions of power and authority.

In itself, that’s not surprising. Lord Acton’s nineteenth-century observation in a letter to a friend — that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” — is famous largely because it summarizes such a commonplace phenomenon. When the personality becomes so large as to dwarf the force of law and morality, where will the restraint reside? Only in the inner constraints of the individual. Less well known is the uncomfortable but logical conclusion Lord Acton penned in his following sentence: “Great men are almost always bad men.”

It doesn’t have to be that way. Clinton was smart and well-read. He would have known Lord Acton’s dictum. Had he paused to absorb it, he could have applied its caveat to himself. That’s probably also true about the executives involved in these instances of corporate corruption. But like Clinton, so many of today’s leaders came of age (as I did) in a consciously self-absorbed baby-boomer age. The mantras in our heads were not penetrating adages like those of Lord Acton. They were glib and alluring mottos like “whatever turns you on” or “just do it.”

The question, then, is what we do with a popular culture that seems deliberately bent on approving the short-termism of a “because I could” mentality? Clearly, we need to reintroduce an appreciation of the long-term benefits of self-restraint, teaching the next generation how to find the balance between what I can do and what I ought to do. Had Clinton devoted his book to that theme, he might have left a legacy far beyond his presidency. Give him credit, at least, for putting the issue on the table.

©2004 Institute for Global Ethics

“He wasn’t lost in the system. There is no question at all … that he received humane treatment.”

– U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, denying charges that the military violated the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of a terror suspect hidden from the Red Cross in Iraq. The man, who has been questioned only once, has been held since October without an ID tracking number and without notification of the Red Cross, according to Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. (“Rumsfeld Defends Secretly Holding Suspect,” AP, June 17)

WASHINGTON
Halliburton Inc. was back in the hot seat last week following testimony from six whistle-blowers who accused the firm of gouging the U.S. government and taxpayers in its contracts for supplying services in Iraq.

The charges, laid out in testimony by six former Halliburton workers, detail alleged abuses that include massively inflating timesheets, abandoning $65,000 trucks due to flat tires and other minor problems, housing staff in a lavish five-star hotel, and knowingly paying subcontractors twice for the same bill.

“There was this whole thought process that we can spend whatever we want to because the government won’t crack down in the first year of a war,” said Marie deYoung, a former logistics officer with the firm.

The company has denied deliberate wrongdoing.

Halliburton also was harshly criticized in a report from the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), which said the company’s lack of oversight has led to subcontractor abuse and inflated costs, reported Knight Ridder. The report recommended extremely strict oversight of the firm’s contracts.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), a frequent critic of Halliburton, sought to include the testimony at a House Committee on Government Reform hearing last week about contracting in Iraq.

Committee chairman Rep. Thomas Davis (R-Va.) blocked Waxman, saying he wanted to investigate the allegations further and might schedule a follow-up hearing if they proved legitimate, a spokesman said.

Amid charges and countercharges of political maneuvering, Waxman released the whistle-blower statements, a copy of the DCAA audit, and an angry letter to Davis, reported the Los Angeles Times.

Halliburton, formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, has come under harsh criticism for multiple alleged violations after being awarded Iraqi reconstruction contracts, including a secretly negotiated contract worth an estimated $7 billion.

WASHINGTON
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will not be indicted on bribery charges, the country’s attorney general announced last week in a move that bolsters Sharon’s chances of carrying out a limited withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Sharon and his son Gilad were accused of accepting a series of bribes worth as much as $3 million from a businessman seeking their help with a construction project in the 1990s.

After that executive was formally charged with bribery in January, Israel’s state prosecutor said there was sufficient evidence to warrant an indictment of Sharon, reported the New York Times.

Last week, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz rejected that recommendation, saying the case against Gilad and Ariel Sharon “must be closed due to the lack of sufficient evidence.”

“The evidence in this case does not bring us even remotely close to a reasonable possibility of conviction,” Mazuz said, trumping the advice of former state prosecutor Edna Arbel, now a Supreme Court justice, reported the Associated Press.

The decision was widely seen as a career-saving development for Sharon, who likely would have been forced to resign had charges been filed. That move would have imperiled his fledgling efforts to ease tensions with the Palestinians through a limited pull-out.

“I congratulate him as a friend and I am happy this is behind him,” Labor leader Shimon Peres, whose party often opposes Sharon but supports the Gaza withdrawal, told Israel Radio, according to the Times.

“We still want to replace the government, but not at the cost of toppling the chance for peace,” Peres added. “If this government is toppled now, the chance of withdrawing from Gaza will go down with it.”

WASHINGTON
An unspoken seven-year truce in the House of Representatives came to an end last week with the filing of an ethics complaint against the chamber’s second-ranking Republican, Tom DeLay, who is accused of “bribery, extortion, fraud, money laundering, and the abuse of power.”

The charges were leveled by a fellow Texan — Rep. Chris Bell (D) — who will lose his seat in the House this November as a consequence of redistricting efforts spearheaded by DeLay, reported the New York Times.

Bell has accused DeLay of three violations: improperly using his clout to order federal help in targeting Democrats opposed to his redistricting efforts back home; illegally soliciting campaign contributions from a Kansas energy company that he promised to help; and laundering campaign contributions through his PAC.

DeLay, who has denied all of the charges, dismissed Bell as a lawmaker bitter about losing his seat, reported the Washington Post.

Bell last week denied that his complaint was politically motivated, saying DeLay has created “a climate of fear and retribution” in the House and should be called to account for his actions, according to the Times.

Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.), an ally of DeLay, promised retaliation for Bell’s decision to file an ethics complaint, saying he would file countercharges against a prominent Democrat.

The principle is “you kill my dog, I’ll kill your cat,” Doolittle told the Post.

Last week’s complaint ends a seven-year tacit truce between Democrats and Republicans, who quietly stopped filing complaints against one another after tit-for-tat retaliation dethroned two House leaders, Jim Wright (D) and Newt Gingrich (R).

While that truce may have eased some tensions, it has not relaxed outside criticism of the House ethics committee, which has taken heat in recent years for alleged inaction in several cases widely publicized in the media, reported the Post.

The House ethics committee has between five and 14 days to decide whether Bell’s complaint merits consideration, and a subsequent 45 days to dismiss, continue considering, or investigate, the Times reported.

WASHINGTON
Facing a tight election in November, President Bush earlier this month asked the Vatican to push its U.S. bishops to speak against social issues like same-sex marriage and abortion that align with his agenda, according to a leading newspaper covering Catholicism.

The request, which took place on June 4 shortly after Bush met with the Pope, was first reported by the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper, according to the New York Times.

At the meeting, Bush reportedly asked Cardinal Angelo Sodano to “push the bishops to become more actively involved” in promoting the issues that appeal to his core voting bloc, social conservatives, according to CNN.

The president “complained that the U.S. bishops were not being vocal enough in supporting (Bush) on social issues like gay marriage and abortion,” a Vatican official privy to the discussion told CNN.

Bush’s request — an unusually explicit appeal to blur the line separating church and state — did not receive a response from Soldano, according to the official, who said, “it was the Vatican’s interpretation that (Bush) wanted (the bishops) to get involved in time for the campaign.”

The White House last week refused to clarify the meeting’s contents, except to say that “the positions of the president and the Vatican are well-known on those issues,” according to spokesman Scott McClellan. “I would just leave it at that.”

The increasingly vocal role of the Catholic church in the upcoming presidential election has raised many eyebrows, especially after threats from the church hierarchy of withholding communion from Catholics whose votes do not precisely align with church dogma.

Still, others say Bush’s appeal is nothing new. “Any head of state who goes to the Vatican will attempt to present a case,” one analyst told the Times. “That is why they go to the Vatican anyway. It is not an act of devotion. It is a political thing.”

Presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), a Catholic who has been targeted by such threats for his support of abortion rights, last week said Bush’s actions were “inappropriate,” saying the line separating church officials from state officials should be respected.

“There are many things that are of concern and taught by the church with respect to war, with respect to the environment, with respect to poor people, our responsibilities to each other, and I am very comfortable with where I am with respect to those,” Kerry told CNN.

“But I am not a spokesperson for the church,” Kerry said, “and the church is not a spokesperson for the United States of America.”

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

WASHINGTON
The Globe & Mail is reporting that the U.S. Justice Department has begun a criminal investigation into the global fur industry’s alleged participation in price-fixing.

The focus of the investigation is the annual $150 million farmed mink industry.

Among the many auction houses, brokers, and retailers being targeted by the probe are leading Canadian and U.S. firms.

One of the largest fur auction houses caught up in the investigation is the Rexdale, Ontario, company North American Fur Auctions Inc., which is also one of North America’s largest auctioneers.

The Globe & Mail report indicates that the catalyst for the investigation may be the skyrocketing price of mink pelts, which has reached approximately $50 per pelt — almost double the price of the pelts in the early 1990s.

NEW YORK
Responding to a pending civil suit alleging that it suppresses unflattering research, British pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline last week posted the data on its antidepressant drug Paxil on its Web site.

In the lawsuit, the state of New York has accused Glaxo of hiding data that proved Paxil to be a possible threat to children who were prescribed the drug, which officially is only vetted for safe use by adults.

Glaxo, which published only one moderately positive study in a prominent medical journal, has said it released all of the troubling data in medical journals or at scientific meetings, reported the Reuters news agency.

Critics of that practice say that it quashes less-than-glowing results by tucking them away in unnoticed corners while giving center stage to positive research, creating a “publication bias,” reported the New York Times.

“We are concerned that this pattern of publication distorts the medical literature, affecting the validity and findings of systematic reviews, the decisions of funding agencies, and ultimately the practice of medicine,” Dr. Joseph Heyman, trustee of the American Medical Association (AMA), said in a statement last week.

Last week, the AMA, which represents one-third of the nation’s doctors, adopted a resolution calling on the government to create a central database that would track all clinical studies from the start, giving researchers one place to turn when studying the pros and cons of prescription drugs.

Merck, one of the world’s top drug companies, last week told the Times it supports such a registry. Late in the week, Glaxo said it plans to publish all of the results from its drug trials on the company’s Web site.

In a tandem move, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, representing 12 of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, said it may require companies to register with a similar database in order to have their results appear in their publications.

A decision on that proposal could come this summer, according to the Times.

CHICAGO
The American Medical Association (AMA) last week defeated and then continued to fume over a proposal that would have given doctors the right to refuse non-emergency treatment to malpractice lawyers and their spouses.

The resolution was proposed by South Carolina surgeon Chris Hawks, who said he was simply trying to shine a spotlight on the need for medical malpractice reform, reported USA Today.

“This idea may be repulsive,” Hawk told the paper. “It’s hardball. But it’s ethical. [Except in cases of emergency,] physicians are not bound to treat everybody who walks through their door.”

After publicity skewed negative over the past two weeks, Hawks tried to withdraw the measure before it came up for debate. The AMA refused, giving members a chance to protest from the meeting floor.

While many physicians said they shared Hawks’ concerns about the skyrocketing cost of malpractice insurance, they said his proposal was woefully misguided and violated the Hippocratic oath.

In covering the Hawks proposal, press reports last week elaborated on a wide range of cases in which doctors have refused to treat lawyers, legislators, or their family members who oppose wanted reforms. Other cases include doctors who have been fired for being married to malpractice lawyers or for taking opposing views.

PARIS
Internet industry insiders, government regulators, and independent groups gathered last week in Paris to discuss how to ensure freedom of expression without lending a helping hand to the scourge of hate speech.

The two-day conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe comes as Zafi.B, a new virus spewing hate speech about foreigners living in Germany, begins to spread, reported NewsFactor.

Internet firms, nonprofit groups, and representatives from 55 countries attended the meeting, struggling to devise a way to balance free speech with conflicting laws and mores against hate speech.

While many European governments bar racist, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic speech, the United States says such comments, while loathsome and unpopular, still must be protected when part of political discussion.

“We are appalled by some of the speeches on the Internet, (but) the government of the United States may not restrict a speech because of its ideas or merely because it disapproves its views,” Dan Bryant, a senior advisor to the U.S. Justice Department, told the conference, according to the report.

Such rules are exploited by some European groups, which have their sites hosted by U.S. firms in order to skirt speech limits back home.

Attendees noted that while the problem has no easy answer, the best solution may come from the bottom up, with Internet service providers adopting policies that bar sites with hate speech.

“We need to get the attention of the online community,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center confided to the Reuters news agency. “They have a lot more clout to address the vast majority of this problem than any of the diplomats sitting in this room.”

LONDON
Forty U.K. parents have been hit with truancy fines for allowing their kids to cut classes, an action that is sparking growing debate about parental rights, schools’ responsibility, and children’s education, the BBC reported last week.

The law authorizing the roughly $90 truancy fines, which double if not paid within 28 days, took effect in February. Administrators say more fines are likely to be meted out as U.K. schools get used to their new powers.

For their part, schools and regulators say the fines are needed to ensure that children obtain a consistent education free of fickle absences and gaps, according to the report.

“Children have a fundamental right to an education, and parents must play their part in supporting the schools,” said a spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills.

Parents counter that they should be the ultimate arbiters of their children’s education, adding that quality family vacations often must be found outside of scheduled school holidays due to escalating peak-season prices.

One eight-year-old girl was expelled after taking an off-season vacation with her parents, who had alerted the school but failed to get official authorization, noted the BBC. While 10 days of excused absence are allowed, she took 11.

The girl was later readmitted to her school, but the conflict highlights an ongoing national debate over how best to balance education, family needs, government oversight, and personal responsibility.

From CareerBuilder.com:

“Frustrated by long days at the office, 42 percent of working fathers say they are willing to take a pay cut to obtain a job that affords them an improved balance of work and home, according to a new CareerBuilder.com survey.

“More than two-thirds of working fathers are spending in excess of 40 hours a week at work and 25 percent work more than 50 hours each week. The CareerBuilder.com ‘Men and Women at Work 2004′ survey of working fathers was conducted from April 6 to April 19, 2004.

“Twenty-nine percent of working fathers say they are dissatisfied with their work/life balance and one-fourth are dissatisfied with their jobs overall. Even though 87 percent of working fathers earn more than their spouse or partner, four-in-ten working fathers say they would relinquish the breadwinner role and stay at home with the kids if their spouse or partner earned enough for them to live comfortably.

“‘Demanding workloads and busy travel schedules have prevented some working dads from taking a more active role in their children’s lives,’ said Richard Castellini, Senior Career Advisor for CareerBuilder.com and father of two. ‘Nearly one-in-four working fathers say they spend less than two hours with their children after work. One-in-five spend less time with their children than their parents did with them.’

“Almost half of working fathers say they are preoccupied with work while at home and 35 percent say they often or always have to work weekends. These work distractions extend beyond day to day interactions with 45 percent of working dads stating they have missed at least one significant event in their children’s lives in the last year….

“To better manage personal and professional commitments, working dads are taking advantage of different work style adjustments such as telecommuting and flexible work schedules. The majority of fathers stated that their employers are tolerant of compressed workdays due to family obligations….”

“An infallible method of making fanatics is to persuade before you instruct.”

– Voltaire (French writer, 1694-1778)