In a way, it's like watching an interstate pile-up in slow motion.
One after another, several officials of President Barack Obama's nascent administration have gone into the ditch — or smashed into ethical realities — on their way to confirmation.
On Tuesday, Obama's choice for secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle, took his name out of consideration after his admission that he had not paid some $128,000 in income taxes sparked criticism. Daschle paid the bill and, as it turned out, an even dearer price.
Daschle's failure to pay taxes was compounded by the scrutiny he received for earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting and speaking fees from health and pharmaceutical interests, some of which would be at the heart of any effort to overhaul the nation's health care system.
Also on Tuesday, Nancy Killefer withdrew her bid to be the nation's first chief performance officer because of her own bad performance: failing to pay employment taxes on domestic workers.
Perhaps Obama's early-days missteps are all the more surprising because he campaigned on the notion of cleaning up business-as-usual government.
"We must change Washington," Obama said in a speech delivered in Green Bay on Sept 22, 2008. "We must reform our regulations, our politics and our government, but we will not be able to make these changes with the same policies, the same lobbyists or the same Washington culture that allows politicians and special interests to set their own agenda."
Or perhaps we are seeing the results of Obama's promises to revamp Washington politics.
The New High Bar
"People are watching closely," says Mary Boyle of Common Cause, "especially on these kinds of ethics and lobbying issues that he highlighted during the campaign. That makes him especially vulnerable to be called hypocritical on this stuff, and that is certainly not how he wants to mark his first weeks in office."
But, Boyle adds, "he's also delivering on his promise to set a new bar. He issued an executive order on his first day on the job limiting the role that lobbyists could play in his administration. So what we seem to be seeing is the old way of business smacking up against the new high bar."
One nominee who is feeling the effects of Obama's new ethics standard through the confirmation process is his choice for deputy defense secretary. William J. Lynn III, a former Pentagon official, is a Raytheon executive and until recently, a former registered lobbyist for the defense contractor (sidebar). His confirmation is progressing, but not without objection over potential conflicts of interest.
Daschle and Killefer joined the parade of doomed or difficult nominations. Newly installed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also owed some $34,000 in back income taxes — a fairly significant oversight for the man in charge of the Internal Revenue Service. But his nomination, amid the hopes that he might help revive the economy, was perhaps considered too big too fail. He ponied up the money and was confirmed — but only by a 60-34 vote.
Still, another Obama pick, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, backed out of his nomination as secretary of commerce because of questions over political donors who received state contracts.
Birthing Pains
Obama is not the first president to suffer such birthing pains. "Most administrations have some problems with initial confirmations," says Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. President Clinton's first two choices for attorney general, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, withdrew, and President Bush's first labor secretary nominee, Linda Chavez, was forced to take her hat out of the ring. All three were derailed by nanny issues.
In Washington, the question is being asked: Can Obama find enough smart, committed and squeaky-clean civil servants to fill the top spots in his White House? There could be a domino effect at work. Daschle might have survived if Killefer and Richardson had not fallen before him. And if Geithner's appointment hadn't already used up a pile of Obama's political capital.
"Nearly everyone has a skeleton or two," Sloan says, "and demanding purity from our government officials will leave us disappointed and with no officials. That said, it is well-known in Washington that tax problems will sink a nomination. Anyone aspiring to high-level government service has long been on notice that they need to keep their financial house in order."
Under the klieg lights of the administration's background investigations, more eleventh-hour surprises are liable to emerge. Which also puts the vetting process itself under a spotlight all its own.
Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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