These tax issues are just SO phony. Can't anyone in the MSM do real reporting on them?

Robert Gibbs said "Tom Daschle's best defense is Tom Daschle" at this afternoon's press conference--leaving everyone to now read between the lines: does this mean he's on his own?

I wish that Geithner and Daschle had the integrity that Richardson had. I'm really disappointed that Obama didn't ask that they step aside willingly. Kinda takes the shine off, at least for me.

Time will tell, but Daschle's chances appear stronger now than they were this morning.

Daschele's chances were never in doubt.

"Integrity"

An interesting word. It implies that making MISTAKES on your tax return (and it hasn't be shown that these were anything other than mistakes) is a moral failing.

I think the biggest "tax" issue here is why Geitner used TurboTax to try to do his own taxes.

Daschle used a professional, sent the tax forms he got from his employer, and did everything correctly. His employer, however, made mistakes, and this is lack of "integrity" on Daschle's part?

Not to mention everyone on both sides of the aisle seems to think he is THE person who can guide us through health reform?

Give me competance over this kind of mythical "integrity", thank you very much.

Being able to get health insurance (I have a doozy of a pre-existing condition) is more important to me that whether Daschle should have know his employer wasn't making him a gift of a car and driver.

They said that if I voted for John McCain, the federal government would be run by criminals. They were right.

After reading about Daschle in todays NYT my question is....what's the difference between a lobbyist and Tom Daschle?

Tom Daschle is more of the same. Looks like Pres. Obama is as well. He does seem like a guy I'd want to have a beer with though.

Daschle used a professional, sent the tax forms he got from his employer, and did everything correctly. His employer, however, made mistakes, and this is lack of "integrity" on Daschle's part? -Cal Gal

I don't care if it was a mistake or not. Even if he used a service, it's ultimately his responsibility to verify the accuracy of those returns before they are submitted. He signed the documents and attested to their accuracy. We're not talking a 'slight' oversight here, but several hundred thousand dollars in income not reported. If this was a commoner, we'd be in far more trouble.

So forgive me if I'm not willing to forgive him, and if I think he should withdrawal from his nomination.

You also claim that he's competent, but I think this is sufficient evidence he is not. How can we honestly expect someone to run HHS if they can't double check their taxes accurate?

Why can't we have competence and integrity? Are you telling me Daschle is the only one out there with the skills necessary? I just can't believe that.

I work in tax and items like this are very common.
For example, it is common for an officer to leave and take his office fixtures, art work, desk, etc. It's forgotten until someone is reading some tax story and realizes that the putter we gave Bill for his 50th birthday was a gift, then someone asks about the desks and before you know it, we find a ton of gifts and if they are deemed material, we amend our return, which in turn produces a 1099s.

What makes me suspicious is the interest he had to pay. Generally when it is an provable error, one requests a waiver for penalties and interest and it usually granted. There was no penalty, so there definitely was no intentional behavior.

I really think now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party. Advice and consent from the Blogosphere was well and good last fall, but now this is part of what is already a brutal partisan battle.

Obama is right not to back down. For one thing, he won't find a nominee who can't accused of doing something:

*Paid Nannies, housekepers, gardeners etc. cash under the table without employers' share of the payroll tax
*Smoked dope
*Paid for someone else's abortion.
*Had an abortion.
*Didn't pay the abortionist.
*Screamed at a victory party
*Didn't go to church
*Attended church but farted.
*Had sex with the wrong person or in the wrong position.
*Got a less than honorable discharge.
*Drove under the influence
*Married somebody who has done any of the above (Women only.
*Filed bankruptcy
*Been fired from a job
*Contracted an STD
*Failed to get a flu shot or annual physical (Remember: This person hopes to be Director of Health and Human Services and must not set a crappy example).
*Got naked at Ft. Lauderdale during Spring Break; posted pictures on Blog
*Mooned the Dean of Men
*Cheated on a test
*Gave a traffic cop the finger
*Cheated a business partner
*Visited Cuba
*Owned the only house on the street without Christmas lights
*Called New York City "Hymietown"
*Sang along with 2 Live Crew using the N-word at Frat party
*Committed numerous felonies and borderline treason (Democrats only)
*Inflated resume
*Plagiarized "Why I Want to go to Harvard" essay.
*Took a perfectly good family dog to the pound.
*Spanked the family kid for complaining about the missing dog.
*Shot a cow moose out of season (Democrats only)
*Wore stripes with plaids

Still no mention of Glenn Greenwald's report on Daschle. You mention Greg Sargeant but ignore Greenwald. Doesn't fit in to your presentation of Daschle huh? Such a nice "corporate" man whose wife makes such huge amounts of money from Daschle's senate buddies on both sides of the isle that she feels compelled to donate to both parties.

Your "no comment" to Greenwald's post on Daschle yesterday is a mystery. You seem to be doing what both repubs and dems are doing for Daschle...justifying and ignoring.

From Matt Taiibi of Rolling Stone posted at Greenwald's site:

"... In Washington there are whores and there are whores, and then there is Tom Daschle. Tom Daschle would suck off a corpse for a cheeseburger. True, he is probably only the second-biggest whore for the health care industry in American politics — the biggest being doctor/cat-torturer Bill Frist, whose visit to South Dakota on behalf of John Thune in 2004 was one of the factors in ending Daschle's tenure in the Senate.

But in picking Daschle — who as an adviser to the K Street law firm Alston and Bird has spent the last four years burning up the sheets with the nation's fattest insurance and pharmaceutical interests — Obama is essentially announcing that he has no intention of seriously reforming the health care industry. . . .

Regarding Daschle, remember, we're talking about a guy who not only was a consultant for one of the top health-care law firms in the country, but a board member of the Mayo Clinic (a major recipient of NIH grants) and the husband of one of America's biggest defense lobbyists — wife Linda Hall lobbies for Lockheed-Martin and Boeing. Does anyone really think that this person is going to come up with a health care proposal that in any way cuts into the profits of the major health care companies?..."

What's taxes got to do with it?

from Glenn Greenwald's site:
"...But there's no need to withhold judgment on Daschle himself. He embodies everything that is sleazy, sickly, and soul-less about Washington. It's probably impossible for Obama to fill his cabinet with individuals entirely free of Beltway filth -- it's extremely rare to get anywhere near that system without being infected by it -- but Daschle oozes Beltway slime from every pore.

Before he was elected to Congress 30 years ago from South Dakota, he had very, very few skills outside of the political arena. He was an Air Force intelligence officer for three years in the early 1970s, then worked for six years as an aide to South Dakota Sen. James Abourezk, then was elected to the House and then the Senate, where he became Majority Leader. So he's spent virtually his entire adult life working on Capitol Hill.

Despite that (or rather: precisely because of it), after being defeated for re-election to the Senate in 2004, he was able almost immediately to begin earning millions of dollars every year from firms and companies that depend on exerting influence in Congress:

The release of the financial statement [Daschle] submitted to the Office of Government Ethics [] 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.

Daschle'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.

Other than his ability to know how to swing doors wide open in Congress, what "expertise and insights" worth that level of compensation does Tom Daschle have? It's pure legalized influenced peddling, and -- upon being booted out of the Congress -- he ran right to it as quickly as he could and engorged himself at the trough as hungrily as possible.

In doing so, he followed perfectly in the footsteps of his second wife, Linda, who served as the Clinton administration's Acting Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, and then, once she left her position running the agency that regulates the airlines industry, returned to her extremely lucrative lobbying practice with her largest clients being American Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Boeing, Lockheed and various airports and airport executive associations -- the very companies that she had been regulating. She began lobbying the Senate on behalf of those clients as soon as Tom left the Senate, where -- needless to say -- he has many "friends" and others who remain loyal to him, and she is continuously successful in defeating measures to impose greater regulations on the airline industry and to obtain other massively beneficial legislation for them...."

Read the whole article. Will we have to pay billions for a not for profit health care system with Daschle. Howard Dean is better qualified, more dedicated and is a physician, whose done so much for the dem party who is being overlooked by the Obama team.

Tom Daschle is to health care reform in D.C., as a lamprey is to a trout in the Great Lakes.

Anyone else notice there isn't as much heat coming from across the aisle as there is on the liberal blogs? Cripes! Even Bob Dole & - sit down first - Hugh Hewitt support Daschle's nomination.

But actually, all you piss you pants screamers out there are giving our President cover. He can point at you guys to prove his bipartisan bona fides. So, go for it, if it makes you feel better.

Anyone else notice there isn't as much heat coming from across the aisle as there is on the liberal blogs? -bob in fla

Yeah. Nothing like praise and acceptance by Bob Dole and Hugh Hewitt to boost your progressive cred. Keep drinkin' the Kool Aid.

I'm starting to see more and more every day what the Clinton supporters saw in so many Obama supporters during the primaries.

The irony is he's being tripped up by the very same tax code he himself helped pass. I don't care if he or his accountant was confused by the complexity of the taxes. Who the hell do you think was complicit in creating the mess in the first place?