Norm Eisen

Norm Eisen had just returned from his fourth urgent trip to the White House in the past three hours when his BlackBerry beckoned again. He groaned and opened his e-mail inbox. There, flashing at the top of the list, he found exactly what he had expected: another note from one of President Obama’s senior advisers, typed in red font and littered with exclamation marks.

Eisen almost never leaves his office without a binder of ethics statutes and a badly mangled copy of "5 CFR," the code of federal regulations. It's a dense collection of complicated rules. One chapter on gift bans is followed by a long addendum of exceptions, which are then followed by their own exceptions. Gifts from lobbyists are not allowed, unless they're worth less than $20, and only then if they result from a spouse's business or employment.

After he accepted the ethics job, Eisen "got comfortable" with his copy of the 5 CFR -- meaning he tore off the cover, ripped out pages that did not apply to the White House and annotated sections he liked. He crossed out rules in pencil that he planned to change. No longer, he decided, could White House employees receive small gifts, honorary degrees or awards from lobbyists.