Tom Daschle, public servant

Tom’s “public” was Leo Hindery, the New York media rich guy who paid him a million a year, plus providing the now famous car and driver, in exchange for what appear to be some very ill-defined duties.

Of course he wasn’t lobbying, which would have required him to register as such, which would have brought certain vocational restrictions, included barring him from the Obama cabinet per BHO’s self-imposed ban on that particular strain of doxy.

Ah, but a lobbyist by any other name is not a lobbyist in the parlance of our government. It turns out that anyone can “engage in lobbying activities on behalf of a client” so long as said activities do not constitute more than 20% of one’s activities on behalf of that client. TD was the only one tracking his hours, so I guess it worked out OK for him.

I make a tab less than TD, but my employer supplies me with a few perks that sweeten the job a little. Despite never having served as the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I am, however, fully aware that these perks trigger tax obligations. And my professional tax advisor reminds me just in case it slips my mind. But if it could happen to Charlie Rangel and Tim Geithner, I guess it could happen to Tommy D., too. He would have been a little more believable if he’d paid up in June when the “error” was discovered rather than waiting until he’d been nominated for the H&HS gig.

Ever since the news of his tax problems broke we’ve been hearing about what a popular guy he is on the Hill. I’m just wondering how much of his popularity stems from the $66,000+ he and his wife gave to various Senate, House and Presidential candidates last year. (Including, ironically, Charlie Rangel.) Full rundown here. Well, I’m sure those contributions will play no role in the confirmation vote.

Finally, don’t you love how Tommy quickly labeled his failure to pay his income taxes a “stupid mistake”? This is has become the de rigor response for all manner of political chicanery. I call it the Harrison Ford response, for the advice he gave the President (Donald Moffat) while playing Jack Ryan in Clear and Present Danger. The basic idea is you self-label yourself something terrible, but survivable (stupid), before your critics or the press can label you something worse and less survivable (e.g., thief, tax-cheat, influence peddler).

So somebody please tell me, why is it so important that Tom Daschle be the Secretary of H&HS that we are expected to overlook this pretty thievery which saps the morale of the country and dishonors genuine public service?

Geithner’s gotta go

I was really hoping we’d get through Obama’s nominations without any drama. The country’s problems are so large the last thing we need is a protracted fight on one appointment, no matter how big it is -- but he’s got to cut Tim Geithner loose.

It simply isn’t credible to believe that someone with his background could have failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in Federal taxes through a simple mistake. The man graduated from Dartmouth and received a masters in international economics from Johns Hopkins.

He didn’t grow up in the shadow of any smokestacks, either. His father worked for the Ford Foundation; his grandfather was an advisor to President Eisenhower. He was also no stranger to the complexities of living abroad, having grown up mostly abroad. He graduated from a high school in Thailand.

He had to know what he was doing (or not doing as the case may be) and it would be a very bad thing to start the new administration with a key figure, the man to whom the IRS will report, under this kind of cloud. In these troubled times (as they say on the nightly news) moral leadership is important, and Geithner has shown himself to be lacking in the necessary integrity.