Government-Related Ethics Issues

There appears to be an inherent tension between the idea of democracy and that of ethics in governmental principles and priorities in the modern period. Boundaries between democratic values, ethics, and power to influence government seem blurred. De Tocqueville famously remarked about 1830s America that successful foreign relations demands scarcely any qualities democracy is noted for but almost all it is deficient in (De Tocqueville 42). In the modern period, the same appears to hold true of the successful conduct of government policy more generally.

Moral issues been a persistent feature of political discourse in the modern period. A pivotal event in regard to government ethics was the Watergate scandal, which has passed into popular imagination as an example of government misbehavior and which had the effect of forcing Richard Nixon, facing impeachment, to resign from office. By the time that occurred, Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew, had already resigned in consequence of a whole range of charges regarding ethical violations, including bribery.

. . .
nistration employees at the Department of Justice, implying that such documents might be evidence of corruption on the part of federal law enforcement officials who were appointees or advocates of Bush. Citing highly publicized accusations of ethics violations in the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations, Barnes says (746) that a "strong scent of scandal is not necessarily fatal in national politics." Ethics issues in the Clinton administration, however, appear to have become sui generis. Marcus sums up the scope of a $26-million inquiry, which began as an examination of a 1978 Arkansas land deal and has since metastasized to encompass the firing of White House travel office employees, the gathering of FBI files on Republican White House aides, the possible perjury of President Clinton's former White House counsel and the mysterious reappearance in the White House of Rose Law Firm billing records two years after they were subpoenaed (Marcus A1). Published reports (e.g., Headden, Bowermaster, and Ferguson 24-6) cited charges that the Rose Law Firm, where first lady Hillary Clinton practiced law in the 1980s, had shredded documents relating to the Whitewater inquiry, which entailed assertions of political favoritism, insider in
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
White House, Michael Dukakis, Neibuhr A6, , Washington Post, Acknowledging Packwood's, De Tocqueville, Newt Gingrich's, Bush Clinton, Jim Wright, white house, washington post, book deal, february 1998, law firm, rose law, public officials, balz a1, rose law firm, modern period, former white house, february 1993, mother jones 18, justice mother jones, book deal gingrich,
Approximate Word count = 2521
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Government-Related Ethics Issues