In politics, or in anything really, when you set yourself a high bar, it's important you at least try to clear it.

Which is why it's hard to feel too bad for Finance Minister Bill Morneau, now that he's found himself on the receiving end of the opposition's barbed baseball bats.  You see, the minister was recently the main attraction for a fundraiser in Halifax.  Held at the home of a mining and real estate tycoon — that's the technical term — a dozen or so attendees paid $1,500 for the privilege of spending time with Morneau, according to a Globe and Mail report.

The event was put on by the Laurier Club, a loose collection of high-level donors to the Liberal Party who have pledged to give $1,500 a year — or $750 if they're under 35.

The first response from the government was a dud.  A spokesman for the minister said, basically, it was a public event that anyone could attend.  Provided of course they've donated their grand-and-a-half to the party.

Compare and contrast that to the aspirational policy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put forward in the Open and Accountable Government principles: "There should be no preferential access to government, or appearance of preferential access, accorded to individuals or organizations because they have made financial contributions to politicians and political parties."

The spirit of that construction is pretty clear.  Ministers aren't supposed to just follow the law, they're to be seen rising above it.  Avoiding the appearance of preferential access is specifically singled out as a policy direction.

So the reasoning that the fundraiser was a public event anyone could attend is less a plausible explanation for the minister's attendance, than an excuse that fits nicely into protocol.

This isn't the first time the government's been shown to have dull first instincts.  Not so long ago, we found out several staffers in the prime minister's office received rather large reimbursements for their moving expenses.  Trudeau's chief of staff, Katie Telford, and his principal secretary, Gerald Butts, were paid more than $200,000 for selling their homes and moving to Ottawa.

The knee-jerk came quickly.  The rules had been in place for decades, and they were followed to the letter.  "We did not create those rules; we are simply following them," Trudeau said at the UN.

That didn't fly for long however.  Within days, Butts and Telford posted a statement saying they were going to be paying back some $65,000 of that money.  They also went on to defend the practice of having their moving expense covered.

"We know that some people will think that any amount for relocation is unreasonable, and that there never should have been such a policy in the first place.  For our part, we want to make sure that our friends and families know we followed a policy that has been in place for decades, and will only be reimbursed for the hard costs of our families making the move," they wrote.  "We take full responsibility for this having happened and because of that we are sorry.  We've learned a lot of lessons over the past few days, and we commit to continuing to improve transparency in the future."

The subtext here is it isn't always good enough to follow the rules to the letter.  None of the reimbursements were illegitimate, but they shouldn't have accepted some of the money all the same.

Which brings us back to Morneau's fundraising.  The prime minister now finds himself standing in the House of Commons, defending his ministers from accusations of attending "cash-for-access" events, on the grounds that all the laws are being followed.

"In our federal system, we have very clear, restrictive and robust rules concerning fundraising.  It's impossible for someone to give more than $1,500 per year to a federal party," Trudeau said in the Commons.  "The rules in place ensure that when those rules are followed there are no ethical breaches."

There are no easy answers here.  Running for office costs money, and that cash needs to come from somewhere.  But if there's a case to be made for cabinet ministers to be attending small events with high-dollar entrance fees, no one in the government is making it.

One wonders when they'll remember the lessons they've already learned.