The late Gov. Earl Long of Louisiana had a way of refining things to their basest element. Asked one time by another official about how to define the importance of ethics in politics, he allegedly replied, "Son, we certainly use ethics in politics. We use anything we can get our hands on."

The House Ethics Committee seems to have adopted Long's point of view and taken it a step further, deciding that just because a political donation looks like a bribe and smells like a bribe doesn't make it one. Thus, an appearance of impropriety is no longer a concern when it comes to handing out tax dollars that benefit companies that are heavy contributors to the lawmaker's political welfare.

The (ethics?) committee issued a report saying just about that in clearing seven House members, one posthumously, of any wrong doing in accepting large campaign donations from a lobbying firm whose clients had benefited from more than $112 million in no-bid contracts from the congressmen. It also merely slapped the wrist of Chairman Charles Rangel of the House Ways and Means Committee for accepting corporate money to attend conferences at Caribbean resorts. Although it cleared five others in that matter, the panel said that while New York Democrat Rangel did not knowingly violate the rules he should have known about arrangements made by two of his staffers, a ruling that appears to have left his chairmanship of the powerful committee intact. Rangel, however, faces other serious questions about his personal financial transactions.

"Simply because a member sponsors an earmark for an entity that also happens to be a campaign contributor does not, on these two facts alone, support a claim that a member's actions are being influenced by campaign contributions," the committee said in a unanimous ruling that portends some pretty serious long range repercussions. Not only does it take the onus off of "earmarks," at least in the House, it also gives new life to dialing for dollars through one's K Street influence peddlers.

Never mind that the last decade has seen a plague of scandals originating from lobbying activities and that the Congress generally has done little more than swat at the problem, now the committee that is designed to oversee the ethical behavior of those elected to carry out the people's business has made things worse, depending on how one feels about lying, cheating and stealing.

Absolving the seven legislators of unethical practices was a blow not only to public policy reformers it also seriously undercut the influence of the Office of Congressional Ethics, a group of investigators who do preliminary sleuthing and send their results to the full ethics committee. These investigators found probable cause that one of the seven lawmakers, Indiana Democratic Rep. Peter Visclosky, sought campaign donations in trade for steering contracts. They recommended the Ethics Committee subpoena him to testify under oath. The committee declined to call Visclosky or to subpoena any records. Visclosky has been the subject of a federal grand jury investigation. What happens now is anyone's guess, but the committee's action can't hurt his chances for survival.

Six of the cleared lawmakers served on an appropriations subcommittee headed by the late John Murtha of Pennsylvania, who died recently, and whom the ethics panel also absolved of breaching House rules. Congressional reform groups had made Murtha the poster boy of the earmark dilemma. He had directed hundreds of millions of dollars to companies and projects in his home district.

House and Senate ethics panels were created in the wake of several major scandals in the 1960s, the most dramatic of these in the Senate where the Rules Committee, assigned to look into the activities of the then secretary to the Democratic majority Bobby Baker and several senators, not only blew the assignment but whitewashed the entire affair, one that could have spilled over to then-Vice President Lyndon Johnson, the onetime Senate majority leader. The Justice Department stepped in and Baker ultimately went to prison.

The first major investigation was that of former Sen. Thomas Dodd of Connecticut that ended with his censure by the Senate, somewhat unfairly.

To paraphrase Earl Long, ethics can be a useful tool in politics.

Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service.