But the clip missed the heart of her speech: she spoke of overcoming her own racism to help farmers in need, no matter what color their skin.

While there’s been much written and discussed about the whole racial flap, the political flap, and the sensitivity flap, what’s been ignored is a basic review of employment law. Hello! You have to do an investigation before you fire someone! If you’re the boss (that would be either Valsack or Obama in this drama) you’re required by law, to do a full and fair investigation and come to a reasonable conclusion in a situation like this.

I have no doubt that employment lawyers at the Agriculture Department, as well as the White House, woke up to the news and started howling: “How could they? Why didn’t someone call me?”

Unless you’ve had someone on a PIP for months, you have to hear their side of the story, not just haul off and fire them with no attempt to find out what really went down.

There’s a point to basic fairness in all of this. Sometimes the law really does make sense.

Protesters marching at the Capitol on March 20th called two black congressmen, the legendary civil rights hero John Lewis of Georgia and Andre Carson of Indiana, a racial epithet as they walked by. The same group of hooligans used that same unmentionable racial epithet with Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri. They also spit on him. They went on to hurl an anti-gay slur at Barney Frank of Massachusetts and the anti-abortion Democrat Bart Stupak was called a “baby killer” by Texas Republican Rep Randy Neugebauer, who says he’s had a “tremendous outpouring” of support for his outburst.

Now, the FBI is investigating acts of vandalism and a death threat aimed at House Democrats who voted for the legislation. A freshman Democrat from Virginia, Rep Tom Perriello, reported that a gas line had been severed at his brother’s home. (They suspect that vandals tried to target his house and mistakenly hit his brother’s instead after a “Tea Party” activist posted Perriello’s brother’s address on a blog, mistakenly identifying it as the congressman’s home and urging reader’s to “drop by…and express their thanks regarding his vote for health care.” Two congresswomen - one in New York and another in Arizona - said windows at their district offices were smashed. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer reported that more than 10 members had received threats.

What’s going on here? Can’t we learn how to disagree without being disagreeable? With a nod to Robert Fulghum, as I wrote in The Power of a Good Fight and We Need to Talk: Difficult Conversations with Your Employee; here are the rules for dialogue that we should have learned in kindergarten:

1. Use your inside voice; don’t use bad words. Focus on the issue, not the person. We don’t need to attack the person with whom we disagree, we can passionately argue about the issues instead.
2. Use your words; don’t hit. Passionate beliefs can be a good thing, but use your passion to register voters or write editors, not to throw rocks.
3. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything. You can disagree without being disagreeable.

Of course, even in the workplace, many of us regress to the sandbox from time to time but we all need to mightily resist this urge. One of my favorite stories comes from the novelist Andrew Greeley. In one of his early novels, he wrote about the story of an elderly priest. Someone asked the priest what he had learned from forty years of hearing confessions and he replied: “I’ve learned that there are no real grown-ups.”

While we may shake our heads and agree, in both the workplace and in public life, it’s our job to rise above the fray and use all our skills to create a civil discourse. It can be done and we owe it to ourselves and our children to try. Otherwise, we’re all in the sandbox along with them.

Of course, in the beginning of the season he had quarreled with quarterback Jay Cutler for similarly refusing to be a team player. Both camps played out the tiff in the newspapers and on T.V. Ironically, McDaniels mentor, New England coach Bill Belichick, never says anything significant publicly. Never. Undoubtedly, with regard to taking those two out of the game, Belichick would have simply done it, responding to questions afterward by saying it was the best thing for the team and refusing to answer any other questions. McDaniels alleged personal criticism of players inside the Broncos’ meeting rooms and team plane this season ruffled other feathers.

Clearly, McDaniels has been trying to lay down the law with his “my way or the highway” philosophy since the start of the season and there’s nothing wrong with that kind of authoritative management in sports or anywhere else. Managers have a legal, ethical and management right to manage. What I do quibble with is whether it needs to be done in public, and whether such moves are effective. Even if you’re a tough and seasoned NFL pro, public criticism hurts. Especially if it comes from someone like a coach who is suppose to be helping you. As I wrote in We Need to Talk; Tough Conversations with Your Employee, it’s an old management saw that you praise in public and criticize in private. There’s a good reason for this rule. It works.

If you’re a manager, think long and hard before you call someone out of the carpet before their fellow workers. If you’re an employee, you have a right to be treated with respect. As I wrote in We Need to Talk; Tough Conversations with Your Boss, let your boss know that you respect his or her feedback, in fact you welcome feedback, but you want it done in private in a normal tone of voice.

Even if you’re Denver’s “bad boy” Brandon Marshall.

If you’re in corporate America, you’re probably used to key cards, sign-in sheets and the like but how safe are these systems? Do you test for leaks?

I can’t tell you how many times I –as a consultant working for some company–have forgotten my visitor’s pass and “tailgated” behind someone else to get back in the building after lunch.

I’m also amazed at how easy it is for me to just scratch my name (totally illegible), say I’m going to see a particular person and then just disappear. What good are all those sign-in sheets anyway?

As I wrote in Stop Pissing Me Off! What to do when the People you Work With Drive you Crazy, workplace violence is on the rise, especially in this age of downsizing when laid off workers may come back to extract revenge. You may not be protecting Obama, but your people are still valuable and the threat level is still high. Maybe not orange, but high.

What should you be doing? Test for security breaches regularly. Have some outsider see if they can get past your front desk, security or whatever. Make sure that your people are trained in what to do should an emergency occur. And for heaven sakes, don’t believe someone who says their name should be on the list.

Or did he? Some pundits have said “who cares,” arguing that he was single at the time and these women were consenting adults. But what’s been lost in the whole milieu is that these were all staffers who worked directly under Letterman’s supervision and control!

As I wrote in my book Sexual Harassment: A Reference Handbook, most organizations frown on these relationships on the theory that it creates a conflict of interest for someone to be dating or having sex with someone they supervise. Even if those women allegedly consented, what about third parties who knew about the affairs and claim sexual favoritism because they didn’t get the special assignments and promotions that the women who did have sex with Letterman may have received? These third parties may have claims against Letterman, the network or Letterman’s production company.

And then there’s that troublesome word “consensual.” There’s countless situations where male bosses have assumed that someone was consenting to have sex with them and then later, that same woman came back to claim that they only had sex because they feared losing their job. In fact, the first case to hit the United States Supreme Court on sexual harassment, Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, hinged on just such a claim. Mechelle Vinson alleged that — even though during her four years at the bank she’d had sex with her supervisor 40-50 times — she only did so to keep her job. The Supremes bought her argument.

The court opined that Vinson’s consent to the behavior did not relieve the employer of liability. The issue is not the “voluntariness” of Vinson’s behavior, the court found, but whether her conduct indicates that the behavior was unwelcome.

And those troublesome “third parties”? Consider one of the first cases of “paramour preference,” Broderick v. Ruder, decided by the Federal District Court in Washington D.C. in 1988. The plaintiff, a staff attorney at the Securities and Exchange Commission, alleged that several supervisors were involved in sexual relationships with secretaries and a staff attorney and consequently, rewarded them with promotions, cash, and other job benefits. Broderick also alleged isolated instances of harassment directed at her. (In one, a drunken supervisor untied her top and kissed her at an office party.) The court found that a hostile environment was created, even though all of the relationships were entirely consensual. The judge emphasized that the sexual activity in the office was widespread and that it formed the basis for decisions on the terms and conditions of employment. When the plaintiff made it clear that she would not participate, the quality of her work assignments changed.

Letterman rewarded the woman in the center of the tangled love triangle (she also had an affair with the alleged blackmailer), Stephanie Birkitt, his assistant and former lover, with a recurring on-air starring role. Despite the fact that she lacked charm and on-air humor, Letterman also footed the bill for her to attend law school, as his company did for several former staffers. Did men or other women who didn’t have affairs with Letterman resent these perks? Most likely, but only time will tell if any of them turned jealous enough to find an attorney and slap Letterman with a lawsuit.

It’s too early to know what will happen to Letterman. One other former intern, Holly Hester, said she had wanted to marry Letterman but that he broke it off because of their age disparity. Birkitt was immature enough to scrawl confessions in her diary, keeping the kind of record that plaintiff’s attorneys love. One of these women could still come out of the proverbial woodwork to claim that they didn’t really mean yes when they said yes, but only did so to keep their job.

When I teach classes on these issues I always advise managers that they need to avoid these kinds of liaisons. Even if it’s not expressly a violation of your organization’s policy, there’s too great a chance that you’ll be snared by some communication snafu — you thought that your advances were welcome when she thought she had no choice — or that third parties will resent the appearance of favoritism.

Of course, I’m well aware that love happens. And often, love happens at work. According to some studies, over 40% of workers had had an affair with someone they work with. But if you’re a supervisor, it’s just a very dangerous thing to do. If you start dating someone you supervise, do what it takes to change the reporting lines so that he or she doesn’t report directly to you. If there’s no chance that you can do that, I always advise that the classy thing to do is for one of you to leave.

There’s a reason for all those old, crude but wise adages, such as not “fishing off your own pier.”

Then of course, we’ve had a summer of snarling crowds at all the health care town meetings: boos, and jeers and general bad behavior. And then there are the contractors in Afghanistan who thought that hazing rituals-including sexual jokes and threats-were the way to build a team.

Has the whole country lost its collective manners? Does everyone need anger management classes?

And most importantly, if all these stars get away with bad behavior, should you?

Or conversely, should you tolerate it in those you manage or your co-workers? The short answer is no. Behaving like a class act will always serve you, as I wrote in my book, Stop Pissing Me Off! What to do When the People You Work with Drive You Crazy. Your mother was right about this one: just because everyone else is behaving like barbarians, doesn’t mean that you should.

If you manage people who behave this way, as I wrote in my book, We Have to Talk: Tough Conversations with Your Employee, you should make clear and consistent statements about what constitutes good behavior, and enforce consequences when someone breaks the rules. Make sure that your policies cover what’s appropriate and what’s not. Have frequent discussions about the values you share as an organization and make sure that you walk the talk.

If your co-workers are behaving in an uncivilized manner, don’t hesitate to call them on it. Ask them to stop, telling them specifically what they’re doing that crosses the line, and most importantly, how you do want to be treated. As I wrote in my book, We Have to Talk: Tough Conversations with Your Boss, if they don’t stop, talk with your boss, HR or your boss’s boss.

The bottom line is that you have a right to be treated with respect at work.

Who was the real class act at the VMA’s? It was Beyonce.

Beyonce saved the week by graciously offering Taylor her own time in the spotlight. Noting her excitement about accepting her first award as a member of Destiny’s Child, Beyonce gave up her time to speak about her own award to Taylor. Her kindness and class will outlast Kanye’s snit.

Even if you’re planning on leaving an organization, go out with style. The world is becoming a very small place, you may well want to return or you may cross paths with your former boss in the same industry.

Be a class act. Be the one to exhibit the best behavior. Insist on it from your co-workers or employees.