A major high-tech corporation is promoting a billion-dollar merger
between one of its top U.S. suppliers and a foreign firm, against the
wishes of Pentagon officials who believe the deal will jeopardize
sensitive satellite technology. The new President, in office only a few
months, had vowed during his campaign to tighten industrial security in
the wake of alleged leaks to hostile countries. Members of the
President's party in Congress are worried by the proposed merger, too.

But then the big American company that wants the deal to go through
wangles a private meeting for its executives with the President's chief
political adviser. They explain their plight to the adviser, whose
assistance one of them later describes as "quite useful."

Despite continuing opposition from the Defense Department, the White House
soon approves the merger. The high-tech corporation's stock shoots up as a result.

Within a few weeks, the Associated Press reports that the President's
political adviser still owned between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of the
high-tech firm's stock at the time he met with its executives to discuss
the merger. Questions are raised as to whether the adviser, one of the
most powerful officials in the administration, has blatantly violated
the Ethics in Government Act.

Apprised of this embarrassing news, the President insists that his
confidence in his political adviser "has never been higher." His press
secretary brusquely dismisses a proposed Congressional investigation of
the incident. "I think the American people are tired of these open-ended
investigations and fishing expeditions .. The White House does not
believe that would serve the public well."

Those remarks sound as if they'd been made sometime during the Clinton
years, but they are, of course, the words of Bush spokesman Ari
Fleischer. He and his boss were speaking in defense of Karl Rove, whose
meeting with Intel executives seeking approval of a controversial merger
has caused all of them some mild shame lately.

It isn't hard to imagine the thermonuclear blast of outrage that would
have consumed George Stephanopoulos or John Podesta if they had ever
done what Karl Rove admittedly did. In fact, it isn't hard to imagine
the entire scenario as the replay of a Clinton-era scandal, except that
in this case there might be substance behind the suspicions.

And there is another obvious difference as well:  Had a Clinton adviser
conducted himself with so little attention to ethics statutes, the Congressional
investigation would already be under way, encouraged by righteous editorials
and ceaseless ranting on talk radio and cable television. But then we all know
that the Clinton-era rules don't apply to the people who promised to return
"honor and integrity" to the White House.

Conservatives in Congress were worried about the national-security
implications of the merger between Silicon Valley Group, an important
Intel supplier that produces optics for spy satellites, and ASM Lithography,
a Dutch company. According to a report in the Washington Times on April 25,
they viewed the White House response as a test of the President's "campaign
promise to tighten the spigot on American weapons-related technology flowing
overseas." The right-wing daily quoted a senior Republican staffer as saying,
"We will learn a lot about this administration from this decision."

How prophetic that anonymous staffer was. Not only did we learn a lot
about the Bush White House, but we have also learned something about
Congressional conservatives, who have remained silent ever since Mr. Rove's
ties to Intel were exposed. Apparently there's no reason to worry about national
security and export controls when a big-time Republican is getting richer.

Likewise, the leading pundits and editorial sages who scorched
Clintonian ethical breaches haven't been able to fire themselves up
about Mr. Rove and Intel. While The Washington Post, for example, chided
the Bush adviser for failing to divest his stock in a timely manner, its
editorial warned against any Congressional investigation sponsored by
Democrats. The Post editors noticed that the Intel case is only one among
several instances when Bush officials have evidently breached ethical standards.
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who thinks Social Security and Medicare
should be abolished, made millions by holding onto his Alcoa stock in defiance
of those standards. Mr. Rove and others held Enron Corporation stock while
they consulted the energy giant's executives on national policy.

But The Post sees no need for anything more than self-policing here.
"Having rightly announced high standards," the paper pleaded, "these
folks should just live up to them."

Unfortunately, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle agrees. He has
promised not to do anything that resembles "payback" for the Republican
investigative abuses of recent years. He evidently hopes this
milquetoast approach will herald a new golden age of bipartisanship.

That kind of whimsical pap must make Mr. Daschle's adversaries laugh.
They think he is telling them that they can get away with anything, and
they will surely take him at his word.
 

You may reach Joe Conason via email at:
jconason@observer.com