Rethinking Daschle etc.

I was rereading my earlier post today on the Daschle/Geithner/Killefer saga and decided that I was too generous, chalking this up mainly to a tax code run amok. I also noticed this comment left by a reader:

but before the Right starts moaning about supposed "ethical lapses" let us keep things in perspective, esp. compared to the previous administration.

nothing to see here.

Nothing to see here? Oh, if only that were so. Consider the following:

• I have an increasingly difficult time believing that the tax problems encountered by Obama nominees are innocent mistakes. Geithener -- slated to head the Treasury Department of which the IRS is a part -- deducted his kids summer camp as a day care expense! That isn't a math mistake, that's willful deceit! Daschle, meanwhile, didn't make a rounding error, he underpaid his taxes by $140,000!
  

• Obama, presumably, had no idea of his nominees' tax troubles. That means that out of a random sampling of Democrats picked for cabinet and high-level positions at least three engaged in some kind of tax shenanigans. Statistically that's just bizarre. And these are the people that as Jonah Goldberg reminds us love to loudly proclaim how paying taxes is patriotic. Tom Daschle is particularly hypocritical. They love to take our money, they love to spend it, but they sure hate paying up.

• If Obama truly represented change and a new era Geithner should be gone and Daschle should have been toast yesterday. Obama should simply have called them up and said, "Guys, sorry, but that behavior won't fly in my administration. I expect you to promptly withdraw your names from consideration." Instead he hasn't put any pressure on Geithner and George Stephanopolous reports that Obama was firm in his support of Daschle even after the tax avoidance disclosure. So yeah, Obama didn't know, but neither did he seem to care.

Lastly, yes, the Obama Administration's transgressions don't compare to the various scandals and brouhahas under Bush, but then again they've only been in power two weeks. And let's not forget the withdrawal of Bill Richardson because of a federal grand jury investigation.

Update: Further evidence that I was too kind:

The tax system is complicated. It is, according to many lawyers and tax preparers, in need of sweeping reform.

But the tax code can hardly be blamed for the recent problems of Obama administration appointees who came up short in what they owed the government, several tax experts said yesterday.

"I can't believe they didn't know what was going on," said Deborah Schenk, a New York University law professor and editor of the influential journal Tax Law Review. "The tax code is a mess, but I don't think that's an excuse for what they did."

..."These are not rocket-science kinds of tax issues," said University of Cincinnati law professor Paul Caron, who also writes the popular TaxProf Blog. "I take them at their word, but on the other hand, these were not cases of something really esoteric."

Hmmm.