Language Matters
Jun 29th, 2009 • Posted in: Statline
For more information, see this week’s Research Report.

For more information, see this week’s Research Report.
by Rushworth M. Kidder
You’d think, by now, politicians would get the point. It’s not as though South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, who last week admitted to marital infidelity, was breaking new ground. The week before, it was Republican senator John Ensign of Nevada stepping before the microphones to make a similar announcement. Last year it was New York governor Elliot Spitzer, along with North Carolina senator and erstwhile presidential candidate John Edwards. Last decade, of course, it was president Bill Clinton.
What keeps these dominoes falling? It’s not enough to fall back on the usual pat answers — that it’s all about lust, ego, power, or thrill seeking. It misstates history to presume deep flaws of character, as though from their earliest years these men were given to venery or adultery. And it certainly won’t do to blame it on their wives, as though these husbands all had been nagged into someone else’s arms by a harridan at home. No, I think what unites them is both simpler and less understood: It’s a failure of mental self-defense.
The reference here is, of course, to physical self-defense. As any soldier knows, there are things you do routinely, almost unthinkingly, to protect yourself in a war zone even when you don’t see any enemies. You wear your helmet, put on body armor, carry your weapon, establish a perimeter, post sentries, keep scanning the horizon, and so forth.
In the war zone of public office, self-defense is of a different sort. The weaponry isn’t physical, nor is it merely political and social, although attackers from opposing parties and commentators from the blogosphere will always be waiting to pounce. The most important weaponry is mental and moral. And the enemy? It’s the drumbeat of excitement and discouragement, praise and blame, success and failure that keeps suggesting, “Give it up. You’re missing out on life. You’re trying too hard to hold high standards in a corrupt world. Climb down a rung or two on the ladder of integrity — you deserve it.”
To their credit, many seasoned politicians I’ve met understand, almost unconsciously, that they need to defend themselves actively from whatever would attack their integrity. They knew, going into public office, that they would have to fend off bribers, alarmists, cynics, and extortionists. They knew they would be tempted not to speak truth to power, muster the moral courage to turn down a campaign contribution, or take stands for integrity in the face of howling constituents. They knew they would have to fight daily to define compromise as an essential ingredient of political accomplishment rather than as a surrender of principle for the sake of expediency. They identified those mental demons, built solid defenses against them, and plunged ahead in spite of them. They possessed a kind of moral futurism that foresaw these ethical challenges before they arose. It was a mental stance that almost expected such an attack and dismissed it with the mental retort, “Oh, that again!”
But the Sanford saga reminds us that, for too many politicians, there’s a hole in the defensive network. It’s almost as though, just outside the politician’s firewall, something wants to plant a virus in the system. It’s called the anti-family virus. It seeks to wreck the one relationship that, for most people, is the key to continuity and success. Destroy that, says this enemy, and everything goes down with it.
How best to destroy it? Not by a direct attack on the family. For most public figures, that would only make them stronger. Best to do it by suggesting an alternative — a little infidelity, a capricious fling, an idle experiment. You can even do it, as in Sanford’s case, by proposing a real love interest — “alienation of affections,” as it was once defined in common law. You then need to insinuate that suggestion into the mind of the political figure. Let him think it’s his own idea, something he thought up and really wants to do. Along the way, blind him to the downside risks, perhaps by puffing up his sense of invincibility — a version of Wall Street’s “too big to fail” syndrome. But most importantly, don’t define it as anti-family. That way, like antiviral software lacking the latest definition of a particular worm, the politician’s mental network won’t pick up on this deadly threat — won’t even know he’s under attack until it’s too late.
What if politicians routinely recognized this potential attacker in their self-defense? What if public figures took it as read that the infidelity ploy would sooner or later appear? What if they saw it as just another trap along the way — as brazen as a scoundrel offering a suitcase of cash, and just as obvious? What if, when the illicit relationship proffered itself, they learned to say, “Oh, that again!” and to dismiss it out of hand?
This kind of self-defense won’t end public infidelity, but I suspect it will diminish it. Along the way, it will help us explain one of life’s anomalies: How it is that so many decent — I would say good — men fall victim to this kind of career-ending move just when the public needs them to continue.
©2009 Institute for Global Ethics
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“He stole from the rich. He stole from the poor. He stole from the in between. He had no values. He cheated his victims out of their money so he and his wife Ruth could live a life of luxury beyond belief.”
– Tom Fitzmaurice, speaking Monday morning at the sentencing hearing for convicted swindler Bernard Madoff. Fitzmaurice was among Madoff’s victims, who collectively were cheated out of at least $13 billion, reports the Associated Press.
After hearing victims’ testimony, U.S. district judge Denny Chin sentenced Madoff to the maximum penalty of 150 years in prison, ignoring his lawyers’ pleas for leniency. “Here the message must be sent that Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil and that this kind of manipulation of the system is not just a bloodless crime that takes place on paper, but one instead that takes a staggering toll,” Chin said, reports the AP.
Source: AP, June 29.
Forbes analysis notes trend of “example-setting from the bench” on white-collar crime; Bloomberg says investigators continue to pull on more threads in the case
NEW YORK
Convicted swindler Bernard Madoff was sentenced Monday to 150 years in prison for his multibillion fraud, reports the Associated Press.
Madoff’s lawyer had asked for a 12-year sentence, saying the 71-year-old defendant was unlikely to outlive his requested minimum by more than a year and complaining that Madoff’s victims were merely clamoring for a “type of mob vengeance.”
U.S. district judge Denny Chin rejected that line of reasoning, slapping Madoff with the maximum penalty of 150 years, saying a signal needed to be “sent that Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil.”
An analysis by Forbes shows that the requested maximum for Madoff falls far short of some other white-collar sentences handed down in recent years, including an 845-year sentence from a Florida federal judge imposed on Sholam Weiss, who was convicted of wire fraud and other charges in 2000. Forbes reports that the sentences are part of a “new fervor for example-setting from the bench.”
Madoff’s sentencing will not end the case, according to sources who tell Bloomberg that the FBI is pursuing evidence of accomplices in Europe. Experts interviewed by Bloomberg say it is reasonable to expect that others will be charged because of the depth and complexity of the case. Other separate probes and cases also are currently under way, including an investigation by the New York State attorney general and a “clawback” civil suit against hedge funds that steered money to Madoff.
Sources: AP, June 29 — CNN, June 27 — Wall Street Journal, June 26 — Bloomberg, June 26 — Forbes, June 24.
For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, June 15 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 23 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 16 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 2.
While some say decision was right because it protected life, other posit that it put loyalties to a few in front of broad principle
VARIOUS DATELINES
There is another ethics debate swirling over a news blackout designed to protect a kidnapped reporter, according to press reports last week.
The Christian Science Monitor reports that the kidnapping of New York Times journalist David Rohde had been hushed up by most Western media at the urging of the Times.
Rohde and his assistant escaped from a Taliban compound last week after seven months in captivity. Their driver remains in custody.
Times editor Bill Keller said that suppressing the story was “an agonizing decision that we revisited over and over again,” but said he was convinced that publicizing the kidnapping would jeopardize the reporter, reports the Press Association.
The incident echoes a similar kidnapping reported in Ethics Newsline in November of last year, when Western media put the lid on a story involving the abduction of a CBC journalist in Afghanistan.
Again last week, ethics experts noted that withholding information is always a tricky decision for news media, particularly when it involves one of their own.
“News organizations are balancing competing obligations if a journalist is kidnapped or detained,” Poynter Institute ethicist Bob Steele told Editor & Publisher. “The primary obligation to the public is to report accurately and timely on meaningful events. If you have a journalist who is detained or kidnapped, that will generally reach the level of newsworthiness.”
But Steele added that news organizations also have an equal obligation to minimize harm. “That means showing care and caution to not further endanger someone whose life may be in jeopardy. These are competing obligations and loyalties.”
Steele indicated that the primary ethical responsibility should be preservation of life, according to the Editor & Publisher report.
But another Poynter ethicist, writing on the Institute’s website, disagreed. In an open letter to the Times’s Keller, Kelly McBride argues that the blackout amounted to putting loyalties to a few in “front of the larger journalistic principles of truth-telling.”
“You have indicated that when a life is in danger, we should avoid reporting the truth until that life is secure,” McBride writes. “In taking this position, you’ve created a standard that we journalists can’t possibly uphold.”
“By telling the story of Rohde’s escape, we’ve already violated it, compromising the life of the driver who was left behind. The driver’s life may be in even more danger now from those same kidnappers. If we were to uphold your standard, we would continue the news blackout until the driver, too, is safe.”
Sources: Poynter Online, June 24 — Press Association, June 24 — Christian Science Monitor, June 20 — Editor & Publisher, June 20.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Nov. 24, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Nov. 17, 2008 — Related Newsline Commentary, Oct. 6, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 6, 2008 — Related Newsline story, June 16, 2008.
Some say private matters don’t impact on state governance, but others allege misuse of public money and say if he were in the private sector, Mark Sanford would be fired
COLUMBIA, S.C.
The spectacle surrounding South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, who last week was pushed into admitting an extramarital affair with an Argentine woman, continues to highlight ethical issues. Among the major angles surfacing last week:
Sources: CBS News, June 26 — AP, June 26 — State, June 26 — MSNBC, June 25.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 1 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 20 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 23 — Related Newsline Commentary, Aug. 11, 2008.
Washington Post ponders whether you can honor a man’s music while having a disdain for a man’s morality; unconfirmed Twitter reports turned out to be right this time, but media critics note that reporting rumor can be risky; the site that appeared to have the scoop on the story is viewed as ethically questionable
VARIOUS DATELINES
The coverage of the sudden and mysterious death of Michael Jackson last week included a good deal of moral soul searching. Among the top items:
Sources: Los Angeles Times, June 28 — Washington Post, June 27 — Knight Digital Media Center Online Journalism Review, June 25.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, July 7, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 3, 2008 — Related Newsline Commentary, June 20, 2005 — Related Newsline Commentary, Jan. 26, 2004.
Montana city apologizes for demanding passwords to job applicants’ accounts; employers fret over what workers say online; generation gap highlights different views of office technology ethics and etiquette
VARIOUS DATELINES
The ethical implications of social networking were examined in several major stories last week. Among them:
Sources: Wall Street Journal, June 23 — NPR, June 22 — McClatchy, June 17.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 22 — Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 25 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 6 — Related Newsline story, Feb. 23 — Lexis-Nexus Technology Gap Survey, undated.
Provisions of House measure, role of developing countries, and effect of doomsday predictions on children all figure in coverage
VARIOUS DATELINES
The U.S. House of Representatives last week narrowly passed a bill intended to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and move the nation away from fossil fuel consumption. Major media reported on several ethical angles to the development, including:
Sources: AFP, June 26 — UPI, June 26 — U.S. News & World Report, June 15.
For more information, see: Related Newsline Commentary, June 9 — Related Newsline story, May 4, 2009 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 27 — Related Newsline story, May 5, 2008 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 21, 2008.
Legal and ethical issues arise, as some claim that the firm is obscuring details of the health of its founder — information that could affect investments
SAN FRANCISCO
Apple may be one of the world’s coolest companies, reports the New York Times, but it steers clear of one “cool-company trend” — openness with the public.
Times reporters Brad Stone and Ashlee Vance write: “Few companies, indeed, are more secretive than Apple, or as punitive to those who dare violate the company’s rules on keeping tight control over information. Employees have been fired for leaking news tidbits to outsiders, and the company has been known to spread disinformation about product plans to its own workers.”
But even by Apple’s standards, they report, the handling of news about its founder, Steve Jobs, who has been stricken with pancreatic cancer and recently received a liver transplant, has been extraordinary.
Apple representatives have refused to discuss Jobs’s health, saying only that he is due back to work at the end of June, according to the Times.
Ethical and legal questions surround the company’s handling of Jobs’s health status because some governance experts speculate that the level of secrecy deprives investors of important and necessary information and may violate laws governing what companies must disclose about the well-being of their CEOs.
Few companies are so closely linked with their founders, and observers say that the death or incapacitation of Jobs could significantly damage the firm’s standing.
Sources: New York Times, June 23.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, June 8 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 19 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 6, 2008 — Related Newsline story, May 19, 2008.
Poll finds that different phrasings of same concept elicit disparate reactions
From the Pew Research Center:
“With the Supreme Court expected to soon rule on a case involving job discrimination claims by white firefighters, and Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s decision in a lower court ruling on the case drawing scrutiny, there is renewed focus on public opinion about affirmative action programs and overall efforts to improve the position of minorities in this country. The public has generally been supportive of such efforts, but is decidedly opposed to the idea of providing preferential treatment to minorities.
“In the most recent Pew Research Center values survey, released May 21, just 31% agreed that ‘we should make every effort to improve the position of blacks and minorities, even if it means giving them preferential treatment.’ More than twice as many (65%) disagreed with this statement. That balance of opinion has fluctuated only modestly through the 22-year history of the values survey.
“The values survey revealed continuing racial differences in attitudes about this issue. Majorities of both African Americans (58%) and Hispanics (53%) favor preferential treatment to improve the position of blacks and other minorities; just 22% of whites agree….
“While the public rejects the use of preferential treatment to improve the position of minorities, in the past it has expressed broad support for affirmative action programs aimed at helping blacks and women gain access to better jobs and education.
“In January 2007, 70% said they favored ‘affirmative action programs to help blacks, women and other minorities get better jobs and education,’ while 25% opposed these programs. Support for affirmative action programs had increased substantially from the mid-1990s….
“Notably, between 1995 and 2007 there was a sharp increase in the proportion of whites expressing support for affirmative action programs….
“Pew Research surveys have found far less support for affirmative action programs when they are described as giving preferences to African Americans. In 2007, as part of a major survey about public opinion about race relations, the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project asked separate groups of respondents different questions about affirmative action programs intended to ‘overcome past discrimination.’
“One group was asked about affirmative action programs ‘designed to help blacks get better jobs and education:’ 60% favored these programs, while 30% were opposed. The other group was asked about affirmative action programs that ‘give special preferences to qualified blacks in hiring and education.’ Opinion was more evenly divided in this case; 46% favored affirmative action programs that give special preferences to qualified blacks, while 40% oppose these programs….”
For the full release from Pew, June 2, click here.
“We can often do more for other men by correcting our own faults than by trying to correct theirs.”
– François Fénelon (French writer, poet, and theologian, 1651-1715)
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