So he was filled with admiration for President George W. Bush, whom Charlie regarded as a man who adheres to his principles. Mr. Bush had campaigned on a platform of compassionate conservatism and he stuck with it.

When he learned that many of his most ardent conservative supporters-leaders of organizations like Enron, Halliburton, KPMG, Andersen and Merrill Lynch-had effectively stolen money from trusting stockholders and employees, he showed compassion.

While "deeply concerned" with the behavior of "a few bad actors," he showed no alarm that many of these bad actors had strong ties to his administration: that a former Enron vice chairman, Thomas White, had hidden $500 million of Enron's losses, had been cited by the Senate Armed Services Committee for violating an ethics agreement and was now Secretary of the Army; that White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez's former law firm had served as counsel to Enron; and that the SEC was investigating accounting practices at Halliburton that turned a genuine loss into a fake profit when Dick Cheney, now the vice president, was that company's CEO. Compassionately, President Bush offered full support to Cheney.

And he supported the SEC chairman he had appointed, Harvey Pitt, who promised "a kinder, gentler SEC."

When it was revealed that, as a director of Harken Energy, he himself had taken advantage of his insider position and sold Harken stock before public disclosure of a loss that sent the stock plummeting, he responded that such matters were not black and white. Further, the SEC had already investigated the episode. The fact that the chairman of the SEC at the time, Richard C. Breeden, had been appointed by President George Bush the Elder was irrelevant. So the White House, on principle, was justified in refusing to release documents relating to Harken.

President Bush the Younger said that there would be zero tolerance for breaches of corporate ethics. He recommended doubling prison sentences for corporate "wrongdoers," sweeping aside cynical comments that the sum of such prison sentences was zero, so doubling zero, according to competent mathematicians, remained zero. And he may not have known that many laws protect corporate executives from "frivolous" lawsuits, so that it was almost impossible to prosecute corporate wrongdoers.

Months earlier, President Bush had promised "a lot of government inquiry into Enron." Thus far, the inquiry has led to nothing. But one must be patient. These things take time.

Inspired by the president's rigorous adherence to principles, Charlie resolved to create a set of principles for himself and stick to them.