George Baker, a member of the Hamilton class of 1974 and a partner at distinguished Washington lobbying firm Williams & Jensen, PLLC, spoke to Professor John Adams's Communication Ethics class on April 6. Baker spoke on rhetorical ethics and lobbying, discussing how the challenges of his profession fit into the academic discussions the class engages.
Baker described lobbying as the practical political mechanism for resolving conflicts between competing positions in a lawful, legitimate way. Often lobbying mediates the conflict between two "right things," said Baker, noting that lobbying is an area where the principles of ethics collide with reality. In pursuing a favorable result for a client, he said, the lobbyist encounters many ethical questions, ranging from the ethics of the message or position itself to the ethics of the techniques used to advocate it. Baker discussed the ethical problems that lobbyists encounter, and how they evaluate the answer to these problems in real situations.
-- by Caroline Russell O'Shea '07
