Tuesday evening, just after I published the post regarding Auditor Miller and Council President Jim Graham’s behavior after a Council Committee meeting, I sat down and watched Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Post’. Its the true story of the Washington Post’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers despite the threat of the Justice Department and the Nixon administration coming down on their heads. We, of course, know the outcome but, its an effective movie and a real history lesson on institutions that have the courage to do the right thing and those who don’t.

In the movie Meryl Streep plays Katharine Graham, the owner of the Post. She is well connected in society but now runs a newspaper left to her in the wake of her husband’s suicide. Tom Hanks plays the newspaper’s editor, Ben Bradlee. One of the major conflicts in the movie has to do with one of Katherine Graham’s most valued friends and confidants, Robert McNamara, the former Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, the years of heavy increased involvement in the Vietnam War. Her editor, Ben Bradlee, has gotten ahold of the top secret Pentagon Papers, those that detail America’s involvement in the war and how they continued sending men off to die in a war they knew they’d never win. It was explosive news and Ben Bradlee wanted to publish them. Katharine Graham then had a difficult decision to make because if she allowed their publishing, it would directly hurt her friend and confidant, Robert McNamara. She was terribly torn over the decision. In trying to convince Ms. Graham of the right thing to do, Mr. Bradlee tells her that these cozy relationships that are shared, which present a conflict of interest (particularly in the service of the truth and right), must end now. It was a different era but in service of the right thing, they must end these things and do what’s right. So then, Katharine Graham has a conversation with Mr. McNamara. It pains her to do so but she must do the right thing. Boys are wrongfully dying in Vietnam and she has an obligation to the people, through her newspaper, to do right by them, her relationships be damned, and so she did.

It’s a great movie with great performances. The Washington Post’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers creates a judicial case which ends up in the Supreme Court where the justices decide in favor of the paper. The justices stated that the obligation of the press was to serve the governed, not those governing. Truly a great moment in this country’s history and for liberty and freedom over authoritarian rule.

So, if you haven’t figured out the corollary by now, here it is: When the friendships that develop among those at Whitehall City Hall become more important and supersede and/or get in the way of elected officials obligations to their duty to office and the citizens they’re supposed to be representing, it becomes a conflict of interest. How many times must this be said? People complain that I keep writing on the same things but the same things continue to go on. This is most recently exemplified by all these men rallying around Auditor Miller after his behavior with me. Their relationships are such an intrinsic part of their lives at city hall they can’t divorce themselves, professionally, from that to adhere to decency, justice, right, honor and obligation of office. They have foolishly created this conflict which gets in the way of the number one reason they’re at city hall in the first place, the citizens and the law. This is why I call them corrupt. It is a corruption of our esteemed standards of government in this country. Those standards they mindlessly put on the back shelf of their obligations for the sake of having someone to go to basketball games with and drink beer with, etc. First things first: As was my campaign slogan in ’15, ‘Constitution and citizens 1st!’ If I, who is not in office knows the deal, why don’t those who are?

I must assume they didn’t know how to go about, not just governing, but proceeding in an ethical fashion while an elected official in elected office. It’s called the benefit of the doubt. But, I have been shouting out about ethics and conflict of interest now for 9 years, when exactly are they gonna get the message? I think its a matter of not wanting to because no one is forcing them to (that’s not decency). The vast majority of the citizens aren’t paying attention and because of that, coupled with their lacks ethics, they’ll do exactly as they please because its what they want and you don’t care anyway. So, what does it matter? That’s not integrity, it’s the opposite of it. It is knowing the difference between right and wrong and doing wrong anyway. It is a corruption of ethical principles when you ignore the moral obligations of office in favor of self-serving interests. Unlike Katharine Graham, they’re not doing the right thing by the people. Get it?

l-r Whitehall Councilman Chris Rodriguez, Auditor Dan Miller, Councilman Wes Kantor and then-councilman and current Safety Director Van Gregg at a basketball game together.

This election material of Mayor Maggard’s on the left is a stellar example of blending politics with conflicts . When you agree to be on a team, you suspend independence for the sake of the team (note that both Council President Jim Graham and Auditor Dan Miller are both on the literature), that independence which may be needed for the sake of, or in service to something, which may be in conflict with ‘The Team’ (such as a citizen critical of ‘The Team’ who is trying to do the right thing). However, when something threatens to ‘hurt’ the ‘team’ or cause its cohesion to separate, i.e.- a citizen, the safety and solidity of the ‘team’ becomes more important than anything else. For instance: the officer who spoke to Councilperson Conison said she told her that Dan Miller may have said ‘get the hell out of here’. She who was standing no more than 5 feet from him in a small hushed room as he shouted ‘Get the fuck outta here!’, not once, but twice. Now, unless Ms. Conison has major hearing loss, we can only assume then that she softened what she ‘heard’ because Dan is on her ‘team’ or because Gerald Dixon has criticized her for her actions or conflicts and these events threaten both her relationships with her ‘team members’ and her standing on ‘the team’. So, again, conflicts get in the way of truth and honor. Kim Maggard, the Mayor of the City of Whitehall, who was standing 7 or so feet away as the President of Council angrily lambasted me in a small hushed room, didn’t have the integrity or professionalism of her position to at least step in and play referee or tamp the rising anger down, no. Jim is on her ‘team’. Not ‘Team Citizen’ but, ‘Team Maggard’. Again…conflicts of interest. In that moment, these ‘professional’ elected officials were more focused on their shared hatred of Gerald Dixon and his criticism of their team than they were on professional conduct and protocol and doing the right thing. In the final analysis they favored politics over a citizen or honor. It is gross. It is not America and if it is Whitehall, we have to ask ourselves, who the hell are we and what the hell are we both doing and allowing? Is anyone but me asking these questions?