Good grief. Another example of what someone recently called the "gaping chasm between talk and walk" with the budding Obama administration:
Daschle's tax issues, and even the influence peddling income he has earned since he left Congress, aren't as galling as the blithe indifference to their own incoherence by the Obama people. The last time I heard the count of lobbyists hired by the administration that wasn't going to hire lobbyists, it was in the dozens. Here's Jen Rubin , perhaps thinking wishfully...
If they really think this is all fine and the public won’t find this odd or hypocritical — or downright appalling — the proposal that this is the savviest, smartest political team in history is due for a rethink.
As always, the useful thought experiment is to imagine the outcry if the following were being written about a Republican put forward for a position as a high government official:
The disclosure of Daschle's tax problems coincided with the release of the financial statement he submitted to the Office of Government Ethics, which details for the first time exactly how, without becoming a registered lobbyist, he made millions of dollars giving public speeches and private counsel to insurers, hospitals, realtors, farmers, energy firms and telecommunications companies with complex regulatory and legislative interests in Washington.Posted by dan at February 1, 2009 4:29 PMDaschle's expertise and insights, gleaned over 26 years in Congress, earned him more than $5 million over the past two years, including $220,000 from the health-care industry, and perks such as a chauffeured Cadillac, according to the documents.
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It is impossible to determine Daschle's current net worth with precision because his assets and income are reported in ranges. He also wrote that the value of some assets was "not readily ascertainable," including profit-sharing arrangements with InterMedia Partners, owned by Leo J. Hindery Jr., a longtime donor to Democratic campaigns and causes, and stock options granted to him by the commercial real estate firm CB Richard Ellis and by ethanol research company Mascoma Corp.
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Daschle collected director's fees from five companies and organizations, including the nonprofit Freedom Forum, which advocates free press and speech rights; the bioenergy company Prime BioSolutions; and the Mascoma ethanol research company. The international energy company BP Corp. alone paid him $250,000 in director's fees.
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Hindery and colleagues at his firm have donated at least $227,000 to Democrats since 2005, according to Federal Election Commission records. Daschle chairs the firm's advisory board....
In a 2005 book, Hindery called the absence of an efficient health-care system for poor families "disgraceful." He did not respond yesterday to an e-mailed request that he explain what Daschle did for the company in exchange for years of limousine service and a million-dollar annual fee. Alan J. Sokol, a senior partner in the firm, said that Daschle did "a lot of helpful work" for the firm but declined to say what it was.