COLUMN RIGHT/ JOSEPH FARAH : Where Are the Ethics Cops Now? : The Summerland home deal should challenge the press to hold Clinton to his promise of a higher standard.

Imagine the following hypothetical scenario: It’s 1988, and George Bush has just been elected President. An oil industry executive and major contributor to the campaign announces that he has leased, at $8,000 a month, a mansion on the Gulf Coast of Texas for use by the new chief executive and his family anytime they want to “just kick back and relax for a few days.”

How do you suppose news reporters and other self-appointed ethics cops would react? Wouldn’t such an action prompt questions about the possibilities of conflict-of-interest and influence-peddling?

Flash forward to 1992: Why haven’t similar questions been raised regarding the acquisition of a beachfront home by Harry Thomason and his wife, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, for the use of Bill and Hillary Clinton?

The Thomasons are among the most politically active people in Hollywood, and they unapologetically use their money and their television shows to push liberal causes and candidates. Might the Thomasons--like that hypothetical oil company executive--want something from the White House some day?

Well, they say, the Thomasons are just good friends who feel sorry for the Clintons who don’t own a house of their own. But if friendship alone is the motivation, why did the Thomasons wait until Bill Clinton was elected President before setting him up with beachfront digs?

After all, during the campaign, candidate Clinton insisted it was vitally important that the President avoid even the appearance of conflict-of-interest in his dealings with political lobbyists and special interests. Remember how both Ross Perot and Clinton denounced the way those seeking political favors are routinely allowed access to the corridors of power in Washington? Things were going to be different, they said. Is it, therefore, appropriate for the Clintons to accept such generosity--especially from a couple known for their strident political activism? Isn’t it just a little unseemly for the President of the United States to be so beholden to anyone?

You don’t have to resort to hypothetical situations to see that the Thomasons and Clintons are beneficiaries of a glaring media double standard.

There were many questions raised over whether it was appropriate for Nancy Reagan to accept designer dresses on loan during her years in the White House. Does the loan of designer dresses even compare with the use of a country-French vacation home on the Pacific Ocean? And the Bel-Air home leased by the Reagans from friends was a different situation in that they paid prevailing rental fees and occupied it after he left office.

Though their story keeps changing, the Thomasons, producers of such television shows as “Designing Women” and “Evening Shade,” clearly leased the Summerland house with the First Couple in mind. In Summerland, nearby Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station provides security and accessibility to Air Force One. The retreat is also near the beach house of Warren Christopher, director of Clinton’s White House transition team.

While Harry Thomason said they had been looking for a home near the beach “on and off for months,” the timing of this acquisition--just days after the election--and the announcement of an open-door policy toward the First Family should raise some ethical questions.

And even before the house deal, the Clintons were deeply indebted to the Thomasons. The Thomasons’ production company became known as a kind of second campaign headquarters for the Clinton team. The President-elect’s brother, Roger, was hired by the Thomasons as a production assistant.

The Thomason influence was also felt during the Democratic National Convention. The Clinton family’s televised walk to Madison Square Garden was orchestrated by Harry Thomason. His wife produced Clinton’s tear-jerking, 14-minute campaign film, highlighted by footage of a 16-year-old Bill Clinton in the White House Rose Garden shaking hands with President John F. Kennedy. The Thomasons are also involved in the production of the multimillion-dollar inauguration extravaganza.

Personal relationships, of course, transcend political office. And no one can question the Clintons’ right to choose their own friends. The President-elect is also enjoying the traditional honeymoon with the press and political adversaries. But don’t the Clintons, who claim to be just ordinary working people and went to great lengths to promise the American people a higher ethical standard, deserve at least the scrutiny we have given his recent predecessors?