Keeping Up Appearances.

A federal lawyer offers the following comments on the item below on "appearances" of conflicts of interest: "The most important reason why we keep the 'appearance of conflict' language in the discussion is to keep the discussions shorter. If the only thing we were allowed to worry about is actual conflicts, then there would be interminable discussions about whether this or that is really a conflict or whether, if you hold it up to the light just this way and ignore that dangling participle, it really isn't a real conflict, not really, sorta. If we had to have these discussions, we'd have so many angels dancing on the heads of pins you couldn't sleep for all the racket." I take that as at least partial vindication.