Almost every new president announces on his first day that the is tightening the ethics requirements of public service, especially for people serving in the White House staff and the upper reaches of the federal departments. All this ever does is cause pain for honest, hard working people--all for a one day news story that the public promptly forgets. But Carter did it, Reagan did it, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43--they all struck the heroic pose.
President Obama, true to form, froze White House staff salaries on his first day. If he froze the salaries of everyone in government, that would matter because it actually would save some money. Putting a restriction on service for people inside the White House saves almost nothing and handicaps some of the most dedicated people one will encounter in any Administration. It amounts to mere political breast-beating, at best.
Then there are the new Obama strictures on employment of lobbyists (you are supposed to boo and hiss when the word lobbyist appears). "No lobbyists need apply," sounds great to a certain kind of ethics absolutist. But it is bogus. Lobbyists are no better worse than anyone else (including people who get paid to lobby for harsh ethics legislation) and sometimes they are uncommonly well-educated and knowledgeable about public policy.
Fortunately, the new Obama rules probably are temporary and will be nullified by repeated waivers. Even folks on the Left are onto the game.
The moral, I suppose, is that there should be a new federal regulation against fake posturing on ethics. Pecksniffian virtue is practically unethical itself.
If someone is sincere about ethics he will watch like a hawk the way these federal bailout and stimulus funds are being handed out by the billions.
