"Ethical Lapses"
The thing that strikes me as odd, as I read the mushrooming stories about Tom DeLay, is that these stories keep using the phrase "ethical lapses" to describe his syndrome; given the phrase's currency, it must have originated at some point and then been parroted since.
Usually, we associate the word "lapse" with a brief excursion away from something usual, as in "he [momentarily] lapsed into silence" or "she suffered a [temporary] memory lapse".
From what I learn about DeLay's behavior, it seems then more to the point if we construe the phrase "ethical lapses", slightly ambiguous as it is, to mean momentary excursions into ethical behavior, as in "Tom DeLay [momentarily & temporarily] lapsed into a situation in which he acted ethically, but it quickly passed."