Don’t compare Oscar Goodman to Steve Wynn
In his Tuesday letter to the Review-Journal, Dennis Shinn compared Steve Wynn’s misdeeds to Oscar Goodman’s career defending criminals and murderers. He asked why we should approve of Mr. Goodman and not Mr. Wynn?
Well, Mr. Goodman was a lawyer by career. It was his job. Mr. Wynn was CEO of a global empire. Signing up as a career to defend clients requires you to defend clients. It does not make you the criminal or gangster or murderer. Being a CEO, however, requires running a respectable company. Assaulting, sexual harassing and threatening employees if they didn’t sexually service you and/or your high-roller guests is not on the list of job requirements.
Mr. Shinn says those in Vegas without sin may cast the first stone. But I don’t feel doing your job well, as Mr. Goodman did, is sinful. If Mr. Shinn feels assaulting and intimidating people over whom you hold power isn’t a worthy enough reason for Mr. Wynn’s fall, he can feel free to stand next to him when the stones are cast.
