What ever happened to the “appearance of impropriety"?


The always gracious and elegant Diane Rehm was back this week. Her guests were:

Jim Angle, FOX News Channel
Jerry Seib, Wall Street Journal
Margaret Carlson, writes a weekly column for Bloomberg News and is the Washington editor of The Week magazine.

Although I was under pressure to meet a Saturday deadline to post these comments on Friday, I did, nevertheless heard the show enough to know that we are still talking about the gay bashing Fowley "scandal" and overlooking another real, and at least more serious scandal brewing. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada who is never too quick to demand investigations, resignations, and all other manners of inquisitions over the slightest “appearance of impropriety", may have in his eyes a bigger log than the ones he so rejoicingly like to point of others.

Although relegated to their editorial pages and not to the front page headlines some major newspapers have editorialized about the obvious double-standard of ethics of Mr. Reid. No calls for resignation yet, but the fact that those liberal newspapers can no longer sweep under the rug the blatant "appearance of impropriety" of Mr. Reid real estate dealings is indicative that, as Democrats like to point out, the "seriousness of the allegations" alone demand an investigation.

Of course, do not expect major frontline coverage in the newspapers, or leading stories in the alphabet soup networks, much less demands for investigations from the so ethically concerned Democrats, and even less from NPR. The weekly Gang-up, for example, did not even scratched the surface on this one.

But this is not the first time Mr. Reid has been caught between a rock and a hard place of ethics. Yet, he has always been able to explain things away and the media has let him get away with it, contrary to what has happened to Republicans for less offenses or questions. This time Mr. Reid is already offering to "pay a fine" if he must. Will the media, including NPR let him get away with it again? What ever happened to the “appearance of impropriety"?

The other piece of news which did get extensive coverage was the "study" by Johns Hopkins University published in The Lancet which claims 655,000 deaths in Iraq as result of the 2003 American intervention! Of course, the implicati0on is that those deaths were caused by the intervention and not by the religious war initiated by fanatical Muslims. Although the figures and the methodology are so obviously risible, what is truly troubling is the extent to which even the scientific and academic world have become so politicized that they risk their reputations for the benefit of a temporary cheap shot weeks away from an American election.

But the numbers in this report and not its scientific validity is what matters and is telling about the intentions behind its publication and commission. A spokesperson for the study interviewed by the BBC on October 11, said the he recognized that this study was politically explosive. "It signifies or raises the question about our current foreign policy"..."it raises the moral question of the war", he declared. Apparently recognizing these staments as odd regarding a "medical study" he further attempted to explain that this was not a politically motivated study and that the best scientists can do "is offer reliable data".

The problem is how can you rely on this study as being of reliable data when its moralist conclusions are obviously the motivating factor in its methodology and intentions?