So US Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales has resorted to the Sgt Schultz-Ken Lay defence about the extraordinary sackings of eight federal attorneys last December to make way for GOP hacks.

It's hardly original, says Rockridge Institute Senior Fellow Glenn W Smith

"It is the standard practice of many contemporary leaders, from presidents who blame anyone but themselves, including the public, for their military follies and policy debacles, to CEOs," writes Smith. "Chief executives love to bask in the limelight as square-jawed, determined, take-charge kind of people, until massive fraud is found on their watch. Then it's, "Aw, shucks. I didn't know.

"They are paid to know."

Smith is spot on! What we have here is a government telling business leaders to play to one set of rules, while its own officials are playing to another set. The thing that makes me angry is that CEOs can't plead ignorance, so why should the person in charge of enforcing that law?

It's a double standard with the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, says the Kansas City Star's workplace columnist Dianne Stafford.

She cites the argument of one businessman who points out that under the conditions of Sarbanes-Oxley, his signature means that he is plugged in to everything that's happening in his company. "And if I violate that standard, the man in charge of prosecuting me is the man who just said he cannot live up to it," he says.

Of course on a political level, the sackings betray the ineptitude and chronic cronyism of an administration hell-bent on placing blind loyalty and political partisanship above everything else.

But then, the fact that Gonzales has resorted to the Ken Lay defence is close to home.

Let's not forget that Gonzales was Enron's lawyer in the early 1990s and that he got a $6000 campaign contribution from the company.

In case you need any reminding, read about it here.

As Frank Rich points out in his Bush-bashing book, The Greatest Story Ever Sold, this Government has been something of a full-time employment agency for ex-Enron consultants and executives. Apart from Gonzales, the list includes former chief economic adviser Lawrence Lindsay and ex-Secretary of the Army, Thomas White.