Interesting

Daschle withdrew. I didn't think it would happen, honestly.

I started to write a post yesterday about how Daschle's lapses didn't seem that big a deal to me. In the course of listing my caveats and "on the other hand" clauses, I convinced myself that actually there was a much stronger argument against him than there was for letting it slide, so to speak.

But I can't seem to get riled up about it on a gut level. I don't know.


At any rate, having gone through that exercise and now reading the NYTimes on his health care industry connections, I'm content with the withdrawal of his nomination.

Frankly, I think it's ridiculous that Geithner got a pass and Killefer got axed, given that Killefer owed less than a thousand dollars and Geithner owed tens of thousands, but I guess Geithner got there first and used up the one free pass that was available this time around.

Finally, to echo Hilzoy, what the hell is going on with these people and their taxes? And how much tax revenue is going unpaid by people who aren't being vetted for Cabinet posts? And how is it that you can discover you owe huge amounts of back taxes and then just go on not paying them without any sort of enforcement by the IRS? How much taxpayer money are we losing here?

...Perhaps a better way to put it would be that I can't get riled up about it in relation to his eligibility for HHS. It would appear that I can, in fact, get riled up about it in itself.