One Darned Good Ethics Course for White House Staff

Conservative columnist George Will wryly asked today (on ABC's This Week) of the President's mandate that all White House staff take a refresher course in ethics....that if the course took one hour, how would they fill the other 59 minutes after clarifying that confidential, classified info is....well, classified and confidential?

After the indictment by Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, on five charges of obstruction of justice and perjury, as well as the implication of other unnamed staff, including Senior Advisor to the President, Karl Rove, the White House was forced to admit what the American public has known for a while.....the Bush Administration is ethically challenged.

The US system of "checks and balances" designed by our founding fathers is intended to provide mutuality and accountability between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government, so that one branch can't become too powerful, and that corruption and weakness are detected and deterred in a timely manner.

It all begs the question...who is watching the Executive branch these days?

Who Oversees Ethics in Government? answers that question, and I was surprised by the answers. Many agencies and committees are assigned that task, including a little known Executive branch agency, the Office of Government Ethics.

Be sure to read Who Oversees Ethics in Government? by Robert Longley, About.com's guide to Government Info and Resources. In fact, take a look around his interesting site. I learn something new each time I browse there.

Here's my question.....after taking a refresher course in ethics, will White House personnel instantly and magically have a change of hearts and minds? Will Dick Cheney suddenly adopt a new ethics-bound transparency? Will Karl Rove cold-turkey kick his dirty-tricks addiction he's had since college?

And will President Bush finally start telling the truth to the American public about the War in Iraq, from pre-war to now and through the forseeable future? After all, at its core, ethics is about truth.

If so, that's one darned good ethics course.
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