Imagine you are one of Shelly Silver’s handpicked protectors. Assume the Assembly speaker appointed you to the state ethics panel with a wink-and-a-nod understanding that you would do his bidding and shield him from gumshoes bearing subpoenas.

All was going swimmingly — you acted with abject fealty when the panel met secretly and concluded it would investigate the conduct of Assemblyman Vito Lopez, but not Silver’s attempt to hide a $103,000 payoff to two women who accused Lopez of sexual harassment.

Then Gov. Cuomo ruined everything. He piped up and threatened to unleash an army of diggers unless you investigate the whole sordid cover-up, including the roles of Silver, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.

Whoa, that was not part of the deal. You are furious. One of your colleagues actually accused the governor of being “coercive and threatening.” Another said she was “very offended.”

We feel your pain all the way from Albany. How are you supposed to protect Silver if Cuomo is going to demand an honest investigation? Aren’t there any rules anymore?

The answer, hopefully, is that the only rule is the rule of law. What a change that would be.

The breakdown of the Silver protection racket — the panel reversed itself and agreed to Cuomo’s demand — is a necessary start to real reform. While the budding investigation still could be sidetracked, Cuomo’s decision to press the issue could turn out to be a watershed moment in modern Albany.

Had he not spoken up, the well-fed foxes would have remained on guard at the henhouse. The move is doubly significant because Cuomo hailed the ethics panel he fashioned but now effectively concedes that the cumbersome structure gives legislators the veto power to protect themselves from scrutiny.

This time, Cuomo’s threat crushed that power, but the doubt about the integrity of the ethics panel remains. That doubt illustrates the best way forward. For as much as Silver, Schneiderman and DiNapoli, all Democrats, now insist they welcome the panel’s probe, it is clear they prefer it to what Cuomo calls Plan B.

By that he means the Moreland Act. Their quaking fear is the reason he ought to make it Plan A.

An investigation under the Moreland Act mostly would be public. Hearings with sworn testimony could expose new shenanigans that would shock and educate voters. Once appointed, its members would be independent. The process would not be limited by artificial boundaries and would be free to follow wrongdoing anywhere it leads.

Under the ethics panel, however, almost everything will be secret. Its investigation will be restricted by political compromise designed to protect as much as reveal.

Anything it does will have the taint of partisanship and punch-pulling.

Most important, public engagement won’t endure the ethics panel’s long disappearance into back rooms, with results announced months or years later. Albany’s corruption is so insidious that a vivid display of the facts is necessary to galvanize the momentum for a deep and clean sweep.

This is the beauty of the Moreland Act — it lets the public see the sausage factory. While that is often not desirable, a sustained public airing of the dirty, filthy truth is essential where there is systemic corruption.

Having demanded an ethics- panel probe, Cuomo is obliged to support it for now.

But he should drop the Moreland bomb at the first hint of backsliding.

He has been handed a once-in-a-generation chance to get to the root of Albany’s crooked dysfunction and it would be a major mistake to fumble it.

Striking teachers fail us all

It’s all about respect or, in the code of the day, “disrespect.” So says the Chicago teachers’ union as it finished a second day on the picket lines instead of in the classroom.

The strike is so chock-full of nonsense that it’s hard to know where to begin. The union, whose members earn an average salary of $71,000, the highest in the country, turned down raises of 14 percent in a four-year contract offered by Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The usual tight embrace between Dems and municipal unions makes the strike something of a shoot-out in a lifeboat.

Naturally, the union will gladly take the money, but doesn’t like the demand that its members pay more for health coverage and rejects the mayor’s plan for evaluations. Apparently holding teachers accountable for student performance is the new “disrespect.”

No surprise there. Government unions have lost touch with reality. Their salaries and benefits are lavish compared to the private sector, but none has stepped forward to pay their “fair share.” They know one word: More.

Chicago is hardly unique. New York teachers don’t have a contract and are waiting for the next mayor in hopes they’ll get a sweeter deal than what Mayor Bloomberg offered them.

Chicago is thus a test case, but we shouldn’t expect much. President Obama has yet to take a side in the family feud in his adopted hometown, which will embolden the unions and cause other Dems to tread carefully. After all, if the teachers can enforce the silence of a president, what chance do mere mayors have against the juggernaut?

Day never to forget

It never takes long. Each September, the ritual of remembering begins as a duty. Then, as flags flutter in broken sunshine over hallowed ground, a child will read aloud the name of a missing father, or a parent will clutch tight a photo. The taps are haunting.

Without fail, the sights and sounds are a trigger. In a flash, the powerful emotions come rushing back, gushing to the surface in a torrent.

Where have they been? How does such profound pain sleep, only to be awakened so suddenly and violently?

Historians will one day better understand the global shocks triggered by the awful events 11 years ago. But for those who lost loved ones, and for those who witnessed the horror, understanding is thwarted by the mystery of merciless evil.

May the innocent and the brave rest in peace. May the fiends rot in hell. And may America never forget.

Leaks are the real threat to security

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, talking about the book by an ex-SEAL on the Osama bin Laden raid, asked: “How the hell can we run sensitive operations here that go after enemies if people are allowed to do that?”

Excellent question. But if he really wants an answer, Panetta should ask the right people — the White House leakers who spilled a ton of classified secrets to make their boss look good. They’re a far bigger threat than a single book.

Profiler-in-chief

In his new book, “The Price of Politics,” Bob Woodward quotes President Obama describing the GOP House speaker. “John Boehner is like a Republican state senator. He’s a golf-playing, cigarette-smoking, country-club Republican who’s there to make deals. He’s very familiar to me,” Obama says.

Not that the president engages in stereotypes, of course.