Tag: Tom Daschle

Like a burlesque show’s post-hypnotic suggestion, the revenge has begun; they will not stop until they wring the last breath out of our scrawny necks.

Just as predictable as this well-worn skit, both the Republicans and the Democrats are treading the boards in their anticipated role, as type-cast as Shatner…. only, if it can be imagined, far less likable.

I mean, who would have thought that the Republican’s would be looking for any or all inane bullshit scandals to bring down people in an Obama administration? Are you shocked?

Are you shocked any less that President Obama stepped into his victim’s role like a brilliant second dying to fill the shoes of an aging Democratic Party who have long lost their chops?

“I made a mistake.”

MY ASS!

I’ve got hypocrisy on my mind, thanks to recent developments in the process of appointing officials to the Obama administration. First, Timothy Geithner, appointed to the position of national tax collector in chief, turns out to have failed to pay certain taxes. Then former Sen. Tom Daschle, the nominee to head Health and Human Services, turns out to have failed to pay much more. He wriggles and squirms a while under the spotlight but makes no move to step aside until a third nominee, Nancy Killefer, withdraws on principle over a much smaller sum of unpaid taxes, after which Daschle can’t stick around without looking like an utter tool.

And all this, to hear some speak, reflects badly on the incoming Obama administration, which was supposed to have been better than all this.

Well, yes, it does reflect badly.

But at the same time, it reminds me of a passage from Neal Stephenson’s novel The Diamond Age: