Golf conflict “PRETTY close to a laughing stock.” That is Walter Shaub’s verdict on America’s standing in the world, at least from an ethics point of view, under President Donald Trump. Mr Shaub’s view counts: he stepped down this week as head of the Office of Government Ethics, a federal watchdog. He is leaving his job six months early, frustrated at the president’s failure to separate himself from his businesses, at White House foot-dragging on disclosing ethics waivers for staff, at its failure to admonish a Trump adviser who plugged the family’s products in an interview, and more.