The tragicomedy is now at the point where it’s a race between Daschle’s ethics woes and the Obama team’s vetting laxness as to which is more laughable.
That’s because the latest bit of ball-moving news is that Daschle was aware that his car and driver might be subject to back taxes way back in June, but opted not to say anything to Obama until after he was offered the health and Human Services Cabinet position.
Especially after Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s own tax lies and screw-ups, plenty of Senate Dems are antsy, at the least:
“It’s totally shocking,” an aide to a Democratic senator said Saturday. “Why do we have to continue to have the same story over and over again with these nominees?”
And, that semi-rhetorical question is the basis of the flip side of the laugh track – what did Obama know and when did he know it?
Plus, as the NYT story linked above points out, there’s the sidebar ethics issue of all the money Daschle has gotten from health-industry companies in the past, and how that squares with Obama’s anti-lobbying stance. Technically, Daschle wasn’t a lobbyist, “just” a rainmaker type. Nonetheless …
And, as the Washington Post wonders, how does Daschle’s $4 mil in income in the last two years square with Obama’s attempt at “everyman” image?
“Daschle is the quintessential Washington story. You leave a powerful position, and you leverage it to make a fortune,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit government watchdog group. “He is not alone . . . [and] it would be hard for Obama to fill his administration without ever turning to someone like that. That said, these are the kind of Washington insiders that Obama campaigned against.”
Daschle’s income stream gets more detail on the job page of the story.
A number of Republicans pointed out things like Obama’s faux Great Seal, the Roman columns at Denver’s Invesco Field, and other style points that came off as looking like arrogance. Beyond the vetting issues with Daschle and Geithner, does the presumption of being able to ram both of them down the Senate’s throat reflect that, too?
Update: A few other blogs note that, re Daschle’s July “discovery,” that was when Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign finished running out the string AND soon after the time he first indicated interest in HHS. Coincidence?
Coincidence We Can Believe In?
And, further typifying what’s wrong with “presidentialism,” President Obama sounds like he will wind up appointing a White House “czar” for just about everything this side of hemorrhoids\, including, probably, Daschle as his health “czar” if he can’t get HHS confirmation.
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