Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Ethics: a vanishing American virtue


By PAT MURPHY
Express Staff Writer

Ethics—"the principles of right and wrong"—seem to be going the way of other desirable American virtues that have slipped into disfavor, such as civil tongues, social etiquette and courtesy, respectfulness, humility, shame. Every U.S. profession and calling has been scandalized by the many faces of unethical behavior—cheating, lying, fraud, theft, deceit and deception, broken oaths, document manipulation and other breaches.

Cheating on exams once was confined to students. Now we learn teachers have been caught giving answers to tests to keep school performance statistics high. Media reporters and authors have plagiarized. Corporate CEOs have run the gamut of ethical abuses—rigging profits, conning customers and shareholders, lying to congressional committees.

Professional and collegiate sports are cesspools of misbehavior. Health care teems with fraud and overcharges.

Judges taking kickbacks, prosecutors concealing favorable evidence from defense attorneys, lawyers stealing from clients.

Therefore, is it mere pretense that the U.S. House has scheduled trials of two senior members, Reps. Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters, Democrats, for ethics violations? Or is this a serious turning point in which Congress has had its fill of members debasing the chambers with ethics breaches?

On their face, the charges against Rangel and Waters seem to ring true. Of the worst on the list of 13 charges, Rangel is accused of soliciting big money from corporations to underwrite a think-tank bearing his name. Some would call this a shakedown. What CEO with business before Congress would deny a senior solon's request for money? As for Waters, she allegedly used her position to help a troubled bank in which her husband held stock.

Rangel and Waters have hinted their defense might be along these lines—"Why accuse us? Everyone does it."

If that strategy materializes, and Rangel and Waters name names, the whole House (and Senate, by inference) will be exposed.

However, just because the average person probably can spot a politician's misconduct doesn't mean Congress sees it that way. Members intent on serving their own interests (especially raising gobs of money) have developed their own lower and lower standards of what is right and wrong. This has effectively made "ethics" an archaic standard.

Rangel's colleagues already have indicated their intentions. They invited Rangel to "negotiate" a deal, whereby he would only be wrist-slapped for poor judgment, rather than subjected to a full-blown trial before peers and the public during an election year.

And therein lines the explanation of why Congress avoids crackdowns on ethics violations.

They want to avoid embarrassing their respective political parties.




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