I used to be a journalist, a profession that observed a certain code of ethics. At least it did at the time. The code wasn’t carved into stone tablets or written down on parchment, but we pretty much knew what it said. I worked for four different newspapers and, frankly, some had higher ethical standards than others, but some general rules always seemed to apply.
For example:
* I would never lie to a source to get a story, even though a lot of sources had no reservations about lying to me. Back then, lying was considered to be a bad thing and not standard operating procedure, like it is today.
* I tried to avoid favoritism or even the appearance of same. For example, my voter registration was Independent so I wouldn’t be accused of bias toward one political party or another. I also declined opportunities to join any and all organizations because doing so might call my objectivity into question.
* And, there were general rules that applied to everybody. We could go to lunch to interview a source, for example, but we had to pay for our own meal. I used to wonder if my editors thought I could be bought with the price of a Caesar salad, but I understood the concept all the same. On one occasion, a reporter who worked for me was given a coffee mug by a local radio station. We made him give it back.
I’m sure there are many more examples, but suffice to say that’s the way I did my job, and I’m sure you get the point. Within that context, I find it hard to understand how some of our most important and time-honored institutions can operate today without any functional code of ethics, and we as citizens sit back and allow that to be true.
Take Congress, for example. You have a representative from New York who fabricated his entire existence and has been indicted for a number of alleged crimes. Rep. George Santos is facing dozens of federal charges, including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States.
He has admitted that he lied about a non-existent real estate portfolio, college degrees he never obtained and claims that he is Jewish, which he is not. In an interview with Piers Morgan, Santos said he fabricated his life story to help him get elected. “I've been a terrible liar on those subjects,” Santos said. There are also questions about contributions that were made during his campaign for office.
The House of Representatives, where Santos is a member, operates under what’s called the Code of Official Conduct, which includes 22 separate sections and 2,858 words, but you only have to read the first sentence of the first section to find a reason why George Santos and his multiple identities should be sent home to New York. It reads as follows:
A
Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House
shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the
House.
I’m not sure how Santos’s fraudulent actions “reflect creditably on the House,” but apparently they do because despite all of his scandals, he remains a member of the chamber and part of a very slim Republican majority. House leadership shows no willingness to expel Rep. Santos and no adherence to its own ethics rules which, one would think, would frown upon such abhorrent behavior.
The GOP simply needs his vote, so ethics rules be damned.
And that brings me to the U.S. Supreme Court of Appeals. It is beyond all logic and reason that after more than 200 years of existence, the highest court in the land does not have an approved code of ethics, nor does it seem to want one. According to Newsweek, the court is facing a growing list of scandals, most of them involving Justice Clarence Thomas and his acceptance of luxury gifts, trips and perks from wealthy donors with business before the court.
In addition, Justice Neil Gorsuch has come under scrutiny for a real estate deal he closed shortly after becoming a justice. “He disclosed the sale, but omitted that the property was sold to the chief executive of Greenberg Traurig, one the country's biggest law firms,” Newsweek said. “Greenberg Traurig frequently has cases before the high court.”
Even Chief Justice John Roberts has been tagged with questionable behavior. It seems that his wife works as a legal recruiter, a job for which she reportedly was paid millions of dollars for placing lawyers at firms, including some with business before the Supreme Court. Invited by the Senate Judiciary Committee to attend a hearing to explore the need for Supreme Court ethics reform, Roberts declined, citing “separation of powers” and “the importance of preserving judicial independence.”
He has resisted any and all attempts to apply a Code of Ethics to the high court, which boggles the mind. Why the nation’s final legal arbiter on the Constitution and the law would choose to operate devoid of any rules of ethics is almost too hard to believe. Or maybe it’s not. I mean, if the choice is between ethical restraint and no-holds-barred “judicial independence,” Roberts has made the court’s position abundantly clear. I read “judicial independence” to mean “mind your own business while we do whatever we want.” And life rolls on, unabated.
Of course, there is no better example of a political leader operating outside any code of acceptable behavior than the former president of the United States, who thinks that ethics only apply to losers, suckers, the Radical Left, the woke mob and other people with occasionally functioning brains. I’ve written a lot about him already and have little else to add right now. Let me just say that if he went to lunch with you for an interview, not only would you pay for your own Caesar salad but he’d stick you with the bill for his burger and fries as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment