Looking good. Nobody in politics wants to look disdainful about ethics. That may help explain why U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert is ready to abandon a controversial change made in January to the way the House investigates alleged misconduct.

Before January, an investigation would continue if at least half of the bipartisan Committee on Standards of Official Conduct favored it. Neither caucus could lock up along party lines to dismiss a complaint. In January, House Republicans approved a change, under which a tie between the five Democrats and five Republicans would halt an investigation.

With House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas named in a series of ethical accusations, Hastert seems to have recognized that the rules change looks like a cover-up. The speaker is asking the House to reverse it.

So far so good, but there’s another appearance issue that needs attention. Four of the five Republicans on the committee (including Congressman Doc Hastings of Washington’s 4th District) have received campaign donations from DeLay’s political action committee, and the fifth has contributed to DeLay’s legal defense fund. Such political back-scratching may be normal, but when it compromises the independence of the ethics oversight process, it needs a second look just as much as the January rules change did.

Membership on the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct should forswear such financial entanglements as a condition of service on that panel.

Stem cell breakthrough. The National Academy of Sciences has delivered what embryonic stem cell researchers have long sought: standard ethical guidelines for this promising field. Because the Bush administration has withheld federal funding for many stem cell lines, much of the research is being pursued by states, private labs and universities. And until this week, they were operating with a patchwork set of standards.

The guidelines allow for therapeutic cloning with the consent of the embryo’s donor but ban cloning to make babies. Therapeutic cloning could lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of many maladies, such as diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.

The guidelines are not binding, but they will help boost the work of thoughtful researchers while shining a light on the unethical ones. And we hope they will put additional pressure on the White House to reconsider its outdated position, which allows funding only for research on a limited number of stem cells.