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A. No. I think there are certain enduring ethical standards, enduring values that don't change with the times. My definition of the ethical public servant is one who acts in the public interest, who is truthful, credible, honest, and who is able to turn from greed and selfhood to think in terms of others.
Q. What about ethics in other callings, the sorry mess in the savings and loan associations, the scandals on Wall Street and among TV evangelists?
A. I believe those who hold public office are held to a higher ethical standard than those in other professions. That is as it should be. However, other professions do have codes of ethics. There is almost unanimity on certain basic values, which are enduring, whether you are a journalist or in the business world.
The only thing that differs between other professions and politics is that there is the requirement for the politician not to be selfish. In the other professions, people act in their own interest, and if they go too far in their own interest, they will run afoul of the law.
Q. But neither a code of ethics nor the law kept those savings and loan institutions honest.
A. The 1980s are characterized as the decade of greed, Greed with a capital G. Many of the savings and loans' problems were the outgrowth of extraordinary greed and chicanery by persons in the S&L industry. I call the S&L debacle a policy wreck. The people involved in it were motivated by greed and ambition, and we also had public officials, regulators, who were inattentive to their public post. Because of that inattention, we the taxpayers are going to have to pay that extraordinary amount.
Q. At the University of Texas you teach a course called "Political Values and Ethics" at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. How do you instill a strong sense of ethics in young people interested in public service?
A. It is not easy. You don't teach people ethics. I try to sensitize my students to be able to identify an ethical morass they are about to step into . before they step into it. I tell them, don't expect to get rich -- the public does not pay its servants a great deal of money. Go do this job because you want the government to run well and you think you can help it run well. And I say, if ever you decide you want to get rich, then get out of government, because if you don't, I'll visit you in jail. That gets their attention!
Q. How broad is your definition of ethics?
A. We can't talk about ethics without talking about openness and inclusiveness. We, as the people of the United States of America, with all our rhetoric and promises, still have the problem of color.
With the Civil Rights Act of 1964 we really thought we were moving to finally get this issue of race behind us. Then we saw during the late '80s a resurfacing of racism. We saw more in the Supreme Court decisions of 1989, and the culmination was that veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1990. It seemed as if a little bit of bigotry was O.K. But if ever you tolerate a little bit, you have let the door come ajar. We saw that in the campaign of '88, with Willie Horton as an issue, and in the Jesse Helms race last fall. The civil rights constituency seems to have been weakened, and that is very, very troubling. I attribute it to the inattention the question received during the Reagan years.