"Appearance of Impropriety"

Appearance of Impropriety: It's an ethical standard that judges are held to in order to keep their bench... Attorneys can be censured or disbarred because of it... Reporters have been fired for it... It is a phrase used in many private employer/employee contracts...

So why don't we hold that standard to members of the Legislative and Executive branch?

I did a search at the http://www.usoge.gov website, and only found a few mentions of the phrase - each time it was in quotation marks. (though I must admit is was tough going through alot of that legal jargon).

Okay so our lawmakers aren't too good at holding themselves to ethical standards...

But "appearance of impropriety" is a nice, catchall phrase to describe much of what is going on right now - while we're calling for investigations and waiting for smoking guns to appear. Why can't we demand our public officials be held to those standards... at least in the court of public opinion? It's a great phrase for a candidate to toss off - or one of those media talking heads.

This is one of those phrases that should be expunged from the lexicon. If you think about it, it means nothing. If your hair is too long or you don't wear the right tie is that an appearance of impropriety? The entire phrase is so ill-defined as to be meaningless.