Sunday, February 01, 2009

I Think Tom Daschle Is Going to Bow Out “Voluntarily”

It must be damage control time. If Tim Geithner looked careless, Daschle sounds at best like a no-frills version of Marie Antoinette. Let’s how Obama makes his way out of this one. It’s not a good sign for the new Obama administration, if so business-as-usual, that the leak is coming before the leap.

2 comments:

Roy Berman said...

"Republican senators largely held their fire against former Senator Tom Daschle on Sunday, saying that while they questioned how he made a $128,000 mistake on his taxes, they were not yet prepared to vote against his nomination as health secretary."

I think the factor that you forgot is that Daschle is a former Senator. The group solidarity dynamic is strong, even between partisans. See opposition to investigating Bush administration officials for example.

Jun Okumura said...

I have to disagree with myself here and say Ranidae Roy the bloggin’ boy is more likely to be proven right. Although John Tower’s failure to get the Senate’s confirmation as Defense Secretary tells you that there are limits to the professional courtesy that the members of Congress will extend to ex-colleagues, the Daschles’ behavior lying behind the back taxes that has upped the level of Glen Greenwald’s perpetual anger—such a thing is, apparently, possible—is probably not out of the norm for retired Senators (and Congressmen).

Whatever the outcome though, I’ll be surprised if the vote is closer than it was for Geithner.