It occurs to me that having an African-American president will mean that threats that we previously swept under the carpet will now be taken seriously if the target of such threats is our President. Joking about a lynching--instead of resulting in a mere frown from a coworker--may result in a visit by the Secret Service.
After four years of this, with the obligatory media coverage, might it finally be driven home that such threats are simply not acceptable?
And in a Maine convenience store, an Associated Press reporter saw a sign inviting customers to join a betting pool on when Obama might fall victim to an assassin. The sign solicited $1 entries into "The Osama Obama Shotgun Pool," saying the money would go to the person picking the date closest to when Obama was attacked. "Let's hope we have a winner," said the sign, since taken down.
Not. Acceptable.
And here's an ethical issue that drives me right up the wall. Staffers who leak information on "secret meetings" anonymously. Just yesterday I--lowly "specialist" that I am--took a mandatory training on workplace ethics that included more than one section emphasizing that blabbing my head off is grounds for possible dismissal.Yet people hired in positions close to our President and President-elect are yapping away:
President-elect Barack Obama has interviewed primary election rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Richardson for secretary of state, according to Democratic officials who revealed his secret meetings...(and, the the same article)...But where she stands in contention for the post came into question as other Democrats, also speaking on condition of anonymity about the private discussions,
Here's the link to the article.
"Secret" meetings? "Private" discussions? And the editor printed that without choking on his cold coffee? Sadly, we no longer even blink at that all-American phrase "...who spoke only on the guarantee of anonymity..."
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