I say this with all due respect for his service above and beyondthe call of duty to this country: I am deeply disappointed in the senior United States Senator from Arizona, John McCain. For the John McCain who served his country with distinction in the Vietnam War, nearly lost his life in a fire aboard the U.S.S. Forrestal, was captured and...

“An organization has obtained secret documents. They are newsworthy, but they could be damaging as well, to national interests and individuals. “Do you publish?” That was the opening to a Wall Street Journal article (Nov. 29) discussing the question placed before several major news organizations, including the Journal, last week when WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to publishing via the Internet and a...

When should secrets be exposed?  When should they be kept secret and who decides? Those are the ethical questions involved in the recent disclosure of 251,287 confidential U.S. embassy cables – daily reports – intended for senior officials at the State Department by the self-styled, whistle-blowing authority, WikiLeaks. In the case of the break in at the Watergate office complex...

In light of my excess last week regarding political pundit Keith OIbermann, I’ve been spending a little more time reading up on civility. According to an excellent little volume, Choosing Civility, by P.M. Forni, “Civility’s defining characteristic is its ties to city and society. “The word derives from the Latin civitas, which means ‘city,’ especially in the sense of civic community. Civitas is the...

On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated. Nearly every American who is old enough can remember where he was when he heard the news of Kennedy’s death. In my case, I was on a train platform in Japan when I was told of the assassination. A Japanese man came up to...

Monday morning I posted a commentary (They Shoot Mules, Don’t They?) about MSNBCs Keith Olbermann. I talked about how loud and offensive Olbermann can be, particularly when he engages in counterattacks against Fox News and Bill O’Reilly. Not long after I posted that piece on Huffington Post, (Sunday evening) I received an e-mail from an editor at the site which read,  » Read more about: Apologies  »...

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann is irritating, pompous and oafish. Whatever points he attempts to contribute to any political issue get lost in his snarky, Lord-High-Executioner act against anything that comes from Fox News. Sadly, this is what passes for political discourse today: two clearly partisan “commentary” shows having at each other in the cable equivalent of the Roman Coliseum. Hiring Olbermann,...

Last month, Gawker.com posted a story about how Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell allegedly spent a randy Halloween night several years ago with a man she had just met. The site’s owner acknowledged that it paid the anonymous source $4,000 for his first-person account. Several other major news sites picked up the story. Deadspin.com paid about $12,000 for voicemails and photos of quarterback...

Yesterday, a House panel found New York Democratic Representative Charles Rangel guilty of 11 ethics violations stemming from improper solicitation of fund-raising and failure to accurately report his personal income. After reaching a verdict, the subcommittee now sends the case to the full House ethics committee to determine how the 80-year-old will be disciplined. Punishments range from a formal reprimand...

In the sports film, Blue Chips Pete Bell is a college basketball coach with an abiding integrity for the game he loves and a passion for his student players to succeed in life. But he’s got one problem – losing. For Coach Bell, losing is a four-letter word that he cannot, will not tolerate. Coming off a losing season, he hits the road to...