It's been a tough week for The One. Tom Daschle's dismay was the big screw up that knocked his ministry well off-kilter. Not only was his team unaware or unconcerned about Daschle's troubles, they didn't have a backup plan. There was no second name on the list. Apparently they took for granted the CW that Daschle was bullet proof. That mistake has been made before.
But it is dawning on everyone that a lot of the apostles that have taken up their fishing gear to follow The One have previously undeclared baggage. Timothy Geithner made it to his treasury post, but not without acquiring a permanent footnote: "these guys want to raise our taxes? Of course, that's because they don't pay them!" Fair or not, the pop-up window will pop up frequently for as long as Geithner is on the job. And then there is Nancy Killefer, whom Obama tapped to be his "Performance Czar." She pulled out when she saw the wreckage ahead of her, but not before she got on the tax problem list. Oh, and Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-Calif.), Obama's pick for Labor Secretary, who doesn't have a tax problem but is married to one. She also seems to have neglected to report some of lobbying ties.
If all this weren't enough, Uber-Democrat Charlie Wrangle seems to have been cheating on his taxes for about 30 years. That's hardly Obama's fault, but it's still Obama's problem. It makes it look like the rot is deep into the foundations of the Democratic Congress. From the New York Times:
Representative Charles B. Rangel’s financial disclosure forms had at least 28 omissions in the past 30 years and failed to account for what became of more than $239,000 in assets, according to a report issued Wednesday by a private government-ethics group.
Despite Congressional rules that require members to list the purchase or sale of any assets, Mr. Rangel accumulated from $239,026 to $831,000 in assets that were not listed in subsequent reports, according to the report by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan group that advocates greater transparency by elected officials.
Lawyers for Mr. Rangel, a Democrat from Harlem whose personal finances and fund-raising are being investigated by the House ethics committee, or Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, have said that sloppy bookkeeping led him to file incomplete or inaccurate financial disclosure forms.
None of this surprises or particularly offends me. Quite the opposite: I am a conservative, which means that I expect human beings to be persistently problematic. When my party wins, I am delighted but not optimistic. When my party loses, I prepare myself to be entertained. From what I have seen so far, this is change I can believe in.
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