Going Through Withdrawal Pains

Another day, another Obama administration member with tax problems. The difference is without the friends on Capitol Hill that Tim Geither has, Nancy Killeifer has been forced to withdraw from her appointment.

Nancy Killefer withdrew her candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government on Tuesday, saying she didn't want her bungling of payroll taxes on her household help to become a distraction for the Obama administration.

Killefer was the second major nominee to withdraw and the third to have tax problems complicate nominations after President Barack Obama announced he had chosen them.

In a brief letter to Obama, the 55-year-old executive with consulting giant McKinsey & Co. wrote that she had "come to realize in the current environment that my personal tax issue of D.C. unemployment tax could be used to create exactly the kind of distraction and delay" that must be avoided in responding to urgent economic problems.

She offered no further details of her tax difficulties.

On the other hand, with Daschle too having his critics asking him to do the same thing and withdraw, today he did just that. Matt Cooper at TPM DC asks the post-Daschle questions.

After Daschle, a few big questions:

1. How many more officials are going to run into the tax buzzsaw. Just spoke to someone who is applying for a senior job in the administration. "If you haven't been preparing for public service your whole life, you're really kind of screwed," said the person. That may be a bit much, but it does raise the question of what tax indiscretion/error is now enough to derail your career in the Obama administration.

2. What's Plan B for HHS and the health care campaign? Remember Daschle was not only supposed to run the largest cabinet agency but also to quarterback health care reform. Will the jobs now be bifurcated?

3. What're the recriminations for Leo Hindery, the New York financier for whom Daschle worked? Did he do anything untoward or was this all Daschle's failure to keep his accounting straight?

4. How badly is Obama tarnished by this both in terms of his competence--two cabinet nominees choke before they reach their confirmation hearings--and his promise of reform.

5. It's No Fun Being Majority Leader. Look what's happened to the last majority leaders in the Senate. Bob Dole quit the post and his senate seat in 1996 and lost badly. Trent Lott got ushered out of office thanks to TPM and others who noted his praise of Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign. Bill Frist was a flameout. Now Daschle's career in public service seems at an end. Makes you not want to run for the leadership.

Somebody should point that last one out to Harry Reid. Is Obamacare now dead before it gets a chance to even get started?

As I said before, it's something of an unfair double standard compared to the nepotism, cronyism, and outright impropriety of Bush's cabinet picks. But Obama has to be held to a higher standard, fair or not, and this includes the members of his administration. Geithner really should take the hint and pack it in himself, for that matter.

At least Daschle fell on his sword, already putting himself above anyone Bush ever appointed that was crooked...and that was pretty much everyone.