"This normally intensive process has been further complicated by both the Senate hearing schedule and the announcement of nominees prior to consulting OGE for an evaluation of any ethics issues.
"It poses a major ethics issue ― an actual one as well as an apparent one," said Craig Holman, who, as a lobbyist for Public Citizen, pushes for tighter ethics rules.
Because Wiener did not think of himself as creating a new branch of ethics, he did not provide metaphilosophical comments about what he was doing while analyzing an information ethics issue or case.
But, inside the building, the episode was mostly seen not as a major ethics issue but as a political problem.
"I think there is a potential ethics issue," said Mark A. Lemley, a Stanford professor who specializes in patent law.
Mr. Rangel, who in March gave up his seat as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in response to a separate ethics issue, has spent nearly $2 million fighting to clear himself in the various investigations as he seeks a 21st term this fall.
Williams stressed that this case is not "a black-white issue, but a right-wrong issue, a morals and ethics issue".
Such behavior is unAmerican and this a serious media ethics issue that has to be addressed.
