Sticks and Stones

I found it interesting last week when Samantha Power, an unpaid advisor to Barack Obama, was fired from his campaign because of the remarks she made to a Scottish Newspaper reporter. In the interview, Power called Hillary a “monster” and went on to talk about how desperate she is becoming with her advertisement campaign. Honestly class, she was fired from a job that was unpaid.

There is a viable reason as to why she was fired. Obama prides himself on running a clean, professional campaign without any of the petty political tricks and name calling. Fine. But what bothers me is that Power said in the interview, “She is a monster, too - that is off the record…” Off the record means off the record, yet the world found out. Maybe that reporter has ethical problems of his own? Also what bothers me is that Power issued a statement of apologies and made it clear that it was a mistake and wrong. Where I feel this situation went ethically astray is that Power’s reputation is now tarnished and possibly ruined because of a simple name calling. The world does not know, or does not care that Power has won the Pulitzer Prize and currently is a professor at Harvard University in the Kennedy School of Government.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is what I used to say when I was a child but after looking at this situation, I am not so sure. Ethically speaking, I think that society is at blame for reading too far into this story. What would the historical philosophers say now about how our society over-exaggerates what they heard from someone else? In business ethics, you need to hear what was being said before you can react; you cannot take someone’s word for it as our society has done to Samantha Power.

Reference: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/03/07/2008-03-07_barack_obama_forced_to_decry_advisers_mo.html