A Case of Wright and Wrong

Ethics is all the rage in Washington these days, as Speaker of the House Jim Wright can testify. This week the House Ethics Committee will release a 450- page report summing up a ten-month investigation of Wright's alleged wrongdoing. A vocal minority of Republicans, led by G.O.P. whip Newt Gingrich, predict that the inquiry will result in Wright's censure, removal as Speaker or maybe even expulsion. But in the end he is likely to hang on to his job because this is an argument not about right and wrong but about the peculiar ethics rules of the House.

Those rules tolerate...