Stephen Miller Restricted Lobbyist Meetings at the White House. Mar-a-Lago Is Still Open

One of the odder things America searched for this week was 'stephen miller white house lobbyist rules,' which is not a phrase anybody expected to type in their lifetime, like 'my dentist's podcast' or 'Guy Fieri sommelier.' The reason: a memo from Miller's office telling White House staff they now need approval from the White House Counsel's Office before meeting with registered lobbyists inside the White House complex. Lobbyist requests are to be sent to the Office of Public Liaison, which sounds like a place where requests go to be gently put down.

The memo, as reported by Politico, arrived after a stretch of scrutiny over who's been getting in to see whom. And here's the part everyone noticed: the rule covers the White House complex. It does not cover the places the president actually spends his weekends, like Mar-a-Lago and his golf clubs, where lobbyists can still bump into staff over a shrimp cocktail the size of a boot. Many corporate executives also simply know the president directly, and you don't need a lobbyist when you're already on the guest list.

So it's a door lock on a house with no back wall. It's like your mother telling you there's no candy in the living room while the kitchen is a Willy Wonka factory. The lobbyists aren't kept out. They're just asked to drive to Florida, which most of them were going to do anyway in January. Ethics reform in this town has always had a certain hotel-minibar quality: the sign says please don't, and the bill says somebody did.

There's also the matter of who wrote it. Miller has spent years as the scariest man in any meeting, a fellow who looks like he's been told about joy and is still deciding whether to deport it. Lately there have been questions about his own paperwork, which the White House says is all in order. A man issuing ethics rules is always a reassuring sight, in the way a fox posting new henhouse hours is reassuring. At least now you know when he'll be there.

Washington reforms always work this way. You don't stop the money; you just change where it parks. Rules are what powerful people write for the building they're leaving.