The Romans had a saying (voiced by Cicero) that in time of war the rules do not apply:

Inter arma silent leges.

While I don't know whether the authors envisioned a scenario like this when they wrote the book, I can't think of a more classic illustration of the problem presented in The Appearance of Impropriety than this latest national goatscrew. I'm tired of writing (and I usually take a break on Saturdays), so I hope readers (and James Wolcott) will forgive me if I quote from my own review of the book:

. . . today's corruption is governed by an elaborate, appearance-based regulatory system in which compliance with the rules, by eliminating any real need for personal integrity, places honesty and integrity about on the level of compliance with such things as IRS codes or affirmative action quotas. Thus, the truly corrupt are enabled, and those with genuine integrity are burdened with humiliating and stultifying regulations which would keep many people away from public service. (As the authors note, Dwight Eisenhower was such a notorious rule breaker that it is doubtful that he could survive today's appearance-based scrutiny.)

Actual example of an ethics rule cited by the authors: "...[A] federal worker can legally accept pay for a "comic monologue" -- unless, that is, the government decides that the talk was actually an "amusing speech," in which case the federal worker could be fined $10,000 and drummed out of the service."

All of this and more can be traced to the post-Watergate explosion in ethics reform (a period the authors call "the Big Bang"). This has ended up deepening the entire country's cynicism, not by restoring integrity, but by creating a monstrous system of appearance-based regulations which encourage moralistic posing while actually undermining genuine integrity.

I submit that men of action do not spend their time worrying and fidgeting about things like the proper bureaucratic paperwork for their wives' nannies! In fact, I'd go one further, and suggest that men who do spend their time fussing over such things are not the kind of men we want heading wartime security.

How quickly people forget the nature of September 11 and its aftermath. Anyone remember that Alan Dershowitz (a liberal's liberal if ever there was one) even advocated allowing torture? I for one disagreed with him, because I do not agree that rules against torture should be relaxed in wartime. (Of course, in emergency situations, they'll simply be broken. Illegal torture is in my view far less risky than legal torture.) I mention the advocacy of torture by someone like Dershowitz as a Ciceronian reminder that war changes things dramatically. Obviously, not for the nanny state bureaucrats. They do not consider the country to be at war.

After all, rules are rules.

OK fine. Even if we look at this from a get-tough, everything-by-the-book, viewpoint, why not hire the guy and punish him anyway? Just fine him and/or his wife (for the nanny stuff as well as the stupid condo lawsuit arrest warrant) and let him do his job. (I think he can take the punishment. Just please, spare everyone the moral lecture!)

War is hell. Hell is not for the squeaky clean!

UPDATE: There are allegations here that Kerik may have tried to cover up the nanny tax issue. If this is true, it is much more relevant to his fitness than the nanny issue itself. As the saying goes, the coverup is always worse than the crime. It makes me wonder, though, how many "Mr. Squeaky Cleans" have a successful coverup in their history. . . Would it not be better if penalties for wrongdoing -- assuming such wrongdoing doesn't rise to the level of malum in se/moral right and wrong -- stopped with the actual punishment for the offense? Or am I being hopelessly idealistic?

UPDATE: I thought I was being a bit facetious with my title, but via Glenn Reynolds, I've learned that indeed there's a link between nannies and hell. The road to hell is paved with nannies like this.