Ben Bradlee Quotes
Sometimes I am convinced there is nothing wrong with this country that couldn't be cured by the magical implantation of ethical standards on us all - leaders and followers. Until that becomes doable, the Center for Public Integrity is just about the best thing we have going for us.
Bradlee, Ben. Testimonial for the Center for Public Integrity. Center for Public Integrity, 1998.
This quotation was ridiculed at the time. Virginia had very lax political ethical laws and regulations for politicians and in that year, both the Republican Governor and the Republican Attorney General had accepted large gifts from businessmen of the state which in other states would have been considered as bribes and be illegal. The rules in Virginia were so lax, that expensive gifts were given to members of politician’s family. In one case that year, a businessman paid for the Governor’s daughter’s expensive wedding. With both houses of the state legislature also in Republican hands, there was no oversight or investigations. It was only though the efforts of the press that the facts emerged. Howell did not say or do anything about the situation. Although in 2013 it was Republicans who were corrupt, the same lax rules had prevailed for years and when they were in power the Democrats made no effort to tighten the ethics laws and rules.
the sovereign of a country
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910
Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee was one of the most prominent journalists of post-World War II United States, serving first as managing editor, then as executive editor at The Washington Post, from 1965 to 1991. He became a public figure when he joined The New York Times in publishing the Pentagon Papers and gave the go-ahead for the paper's extensive coverage of the Watergate scandal. He was also criticized for editorial lapses when the Post had to return a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 after it discovered its award-winning story was false.
