This is from Richard Cohen's piece "100 Billion and No Change Back" in today's Washington Post:"Taken individually, the tax problems of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the health and human services secretary-designate, Tom Daschle, don't amount to much. Together, though, they amount to a message: If you are beloved by this administration, you don't necessarily have to play by the rules. Both Geithner and Daschle are good men, but their appointments send the message that Washington's new broom sweeps a bit like the old one."I am very frustrated that Obama is defending Daschle. Based on what I have read, he knew he was skirting the tax code and chose to do it anyway. More than ever, it seems that Washington power-brokers play by different rules than everybody else.
22. Which Democratic leader (if any) is taking the lead in telling Obama to abandon the nomination? According to Biden in yesterday's NYT, Obama is very comfortable with hearing disagreements -- ok, if that's the case, then who is standing-up and telling him that Daschle is not acceptable?
23. Why is Daschle not a "lobbyist" for purposes of Obama's new ethics rules? Based on everything I have read, he has been lobbying for the past several years. This is inappropriate semantic line-bending ('it depends on what the definition of "is" is').
