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An Arrogant Response to an Ethics Report
Friday, June 26th, 2009
Robert Wechsler
It's not easy to publicize ethical and unethical activity in a
responsible manner. And when this is done, it can sometimes lead to
false attacks on the the legitimacy of the organization doing the
publicizing. This is what happened this week in Colorado.
Colorado Ethics Watch published an Ethics Roundup this week, giving examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly among conduct by Colorado government officials and agencies. Including and starting off with the good is a good idea. I know how easy it is to focus on the bad and the problematic, but it is also important to emphasize the good, and to learn from good people and good conduct.
The principal problem I see in this report is the "ugly" part. The good and bad are self-explanatory, but the explanation of "ugly" -- lapses of ethical judgment -- is far from clear or consistent with how we use "ugly" in such contexts. I think it's valuable to point out irresponsible responses to conflicts of interest that fall short of ethics code violations, but the cute categorization based on an old movie is not quite appropriate and gives the appearance of unprofessionalism.
But uglier than this use of "ugly" is the reaction of Colorado Springs mayor Lionel Rivera to being included in the "ugly" portion of the report. According to an article in yesterday's Colorado Springs Gazette, Rivera rejected his designation as "ugly," calling the organization "a left-leaning organization that likes to target Republicans." He based this assertion on a piece by a conservative columnist, which was quickly picked apart in a piece by Colorado Media Matters, which seeks truth in reporting. He also ignored the fact that the Colorado Ethics Watch report is balanced, calling one Democrat and one Republican good, and one Democrat, one Republican, and one Unaffiliated bad. The others identified are not elected officials.
This sort of false, ad hominem attack on the reputation and reliability of the speaker, rather than the content of the speech, is what people do when they can't adequately respond to the content.
The mayor also spoke of how proud he was to be included with the other individual in the "ugly" category. "He has done great things for the state of Colorado and the Denver metro area, and to be put in the same category as Joe Blake, I consider that a compliment."
This statement does, I feel, merit being called "ugly." An official can do valuable things and still act unethically. In fact, it is often the praise an official gets for his or her actions that leads to the sort of arrogance, based on a feeling of entitlement, that so often accompanies unethical conduct (see my blog post on this topic). Mayor Rivera, in his reaction to the Colorado Ethics Watch report, displays just that sort of arrogance.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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Colorado Ethics Watch published an Ethics Roundup this week, giving examples of the good, the bad, and the ugly among conduct by Colorado government officials and agencies. Including and starting off with the good is a good idea. I know how easy it is to focus on the bad and the problematic, but it is also important to emphasize the good, and to learn from good people and good conduct.
The principal problem I see in this report is the "ugly" part. The good and bad are self-explanatory, but the explanation of "ugly" -- lapses of ethical judgment -- is far from clear or consistent with how we use "ugly" in such contexts. I think it's valuable to point out irresponsible responses to conflicts of interest that fall short of ethics code violations, but the cute categorization based on an old movie is not quite appropriate and gives the appearance of unprofessionalism.
But uglier than this use of "ugly" is the reaction of Colorado Springs mayor Lionel Rivera to being included in the "ugly" portion of the report. According to an article in yesterday's Colorado Springs Gazette, Rivera rejected his designation as "ugly," calling the organization "a left-leaning organization that likes to target Republicans." He based this assertion on a piece by a conservative columnist, which was quickly picked apart in a piece by Colorado Media Matters, which seeks truth in reporting. He also ignored the fact that the Colorado Ethics Watch report is balanced, calling one Democrat and one Republican good, and one Democrat, one Republican, and one Unaffiliated bad. The others identified are not elected officials.
This sort of false, ad hominem attack on the reputation and reliability of the speaker, rather than the content of the speech, is what people do when they can't adequately respond to the content.
The mayor also spoke of how proud he was to be included with the other individual in the "ugly" category. "He has done great things for the state of Colorado and the Denver metro area, and to be put in the same category as Joe Blake, I consider that a compliment."
This statement does, I feel, merit being called "ugly." An official can do valuable things and still act unethically. In fact, it is often the praise an official gets for his or her actions that leads to the sort of arrogance, based on a feeling of entitlement, that so often accompanies unethical conduct (see my blog post on this topic). Mayor Rivera, in his reaction to the Colorado Ethics Watch report, displays just that sort of arrogance.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
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