In a recent letter to the Los Angeles Times editors, L.L. Claflin wanted to know, rhetorically, "the difference" ethically between the object of a current Pentagon inspector general investigation and Vice-President Cheney.

"Boeing hired a retired major general of the Air National Guard as a lobbyist for a now-defunct $23-billion agreement to lease refueling tankers to the Air Force," Claflin wrote.

"The major general is being investigated by the Pentagon for possible ethics violations." Cheney, Claflin points out, "left his CEO position at Halliburton. His former employer has enjoyed no-bid contracts worth billions since the start of the war in Iraq."

It is clear Times reader Claflin obviously doesn't see any difference, and one might presume from their printing of the latter that the L.A. Times editors don't either.

Well, there is. In fact, the two situations, ethically speaking, have nothing in common whatsoever. It is more than alarming that a major U.S. daily either couldn't, wouldn't, or didn't want to answer Claflin's query with the correct answer, and fairly obvious, answer.

In 2002, the former head of the Air National Guard, Maj. Gen. Paul A. Weaver, accepted a job as a lobbyist with Boeing Co. only three months after he retired from the military. He then proceeded to lobby state adjutant generals for a $23-billion deal to lease aerial refueling tankers to the Air Force. That deal is dead, cancelled because of criminal conflict of interest dealings between Boeing and Air Force officials, but the Pentagon's Inspector General wants to know whether Weaver violated the federally mandated one year "cooling off period" required before a former federal official can lobby his own department or agency on behalf of a private corporation. Weaver claims the officials he contacted fall outside the statute: that's a lawyer's argument and has nothing to do with ethics. His actions certainly violate the spirit of the law.

Is it somehow inherently unethical to lobby one's former associates? The fact that decision-makers were once friends or colleagues doesn't stop them from being able to say "no," nor is it at all fair or even reasonable to presume that any official would violate his or her duty to the government in order to kowtow to a prior workplace relationship. But the one year restriction was put in place to avoid the appearance of impropriety from abrupt side-switching, and Weaver was ethically as well as legally bound to abide by it.

Cheney, on the other hand, left Halliburton and now works for the United States of America. Is the Vice-President involved in the military contracting process? No, he isn't; that's not his job. Is he lobbying the Pentagon on behalf of his former company? Well, why would he? They aren't paying him to lobby; he gains nothing from Halliburton's success and loses nothing through their failure. He is receiving deferred pay for his time there, but that amount is fixed. Don't you see, L.L.: the General Weaver is being paid by Boeing to lobby his former employers. The analogous situation involving Cheney would be if he used his prior connections to convince Halliburton management to give his current employer…the United States…a discount on their services.

But Cheney's position is the reverse of that. There has never been any showing that Halliburton has ever lobbied Cheney, and it continues to mystify me that people assume that the Vice-President is different from the rest of the human race and therefore favors his previous employer over his current one. Do you do that? Does L.L. Claflin? Why the presumption that Cheney is inclined to do something which is counter-intuitive?

And that brings us to the really obvious difference between the two scenarios. General Weaver's unethical contacts actually happened. Vice-President Cheney's supposedly unethical actions (that is, selling U.S. interest down the river in order to line the pockets of a company he doesn't work for and owes no loyalty to) exist entirely in the minds of his political foes, such as, one must assume, the Los Angeles Times.

And probably L.L. Claflin as well. But there's your answer, sir, just in case you really wanted to know. One is unethical, and the other is all in your mind.