Entangled Alliances

Looks like Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is going to be President Obama’s choice for HHS, following the ignominious withdrawal of Tom Daschle.  Seems to me that Obama never misses an opportunity to make an easy Senate pick-up.  Must be infuriating to be Bob Menendez.

Talking of President Obama, he’s making his first “overseas” trip this week: to Canada.  Meanwhile, Hillary’s touring the Far East, assuring the Indonesians that Obama will find time to visit them eventually.  Don’t remember people being so keen for Air Force One to touch down when it was carrying the Texan…

photo credit: azipaybarah

Meanwhile, Hillary as elder stateswoman is putting into stark contrast the gun-totin’ (literally) ways of her successor.  Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, whose associations with the NRA are well known, caved in to those dastardly NYC liberals this week and removed the rifles from under her bed (insert lament for Caroline Kennedy here).

Gillibrand is far from the only recently-appointed Senator in the news.  In the never-ending saga of the Illinois Senate seat, Roland Burris, former (i.e. impeached and ousted) Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s choice as Obama’s replacement, is under active investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee.  It might only be a matter of time before he is forced out, and Illinois’ senior Senator, Dick Durbin, already seems to be distancing himself.  All this seems to lead credence to Russ Feingold’s suggested 28th Amendment, an end to gubernatorial appointments for empty Senate seats.  This article from The Economist makes the case.

In other news, this week, Facebook was forced into a volte-face regarding its terms of use.  It had unilaterally appropriated the rights to everything you post or write on its site.  It’s only a matter of time, however, before they find some other way to do this.  Generation Y needs to wake up and realise that privacy online is a major issue.  You write something on Facebook, or post the pictures from that drunken party, and it’s in the public domain forever.  Check out the interesting debate going on at the New York Times about the future of ’social spaces’ online.

Tom Daschle’s withdrawal from the nomination for Health and Human Services Secretary following revelations about his unpaid taxes has sent shockwaves throughout Washington.  No one saw it coming – and it’s not often you can say that. With regards to the logic behind his withdrawal, the always excellent Ezra Klein hits the nail on the head. The key point:

There was always something studiedly vague about Obama’s insistence that he would battle a culture in which “our leaders have thrown open the doors of Congress and the White House to an army of Washington lobbyists who have turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.” Obama could not remake Washington anew. His administration would certainly face unwanted scandal and welcome proficient rogues.

But it turns out that Obama’s words, well, mattered. They made it harder to ignore scandal, as the Bush administration had done. The endlessly long vetting forms forcing deep tax and income transparency, which in turn uncovered embarrassments that would never have emerged under past regimes. This has made for a more troubled transition, but will probably also result in a cleaner administration. For all the embarrassments, this, in a concrete sense, is what change looks like. It’s not an administration that decides to be clean so much as one that has little choice in the matter.

In other words: if you raise the bar, you have to be able to jump over it.

The shock felt by those on the left is no doubt accentuated by not knowing how to react.  On the one hand, it’s a massive blow to hopes of U.S. health reform given that Daschle, as former Senate Majority Leader and much-loved Washington insider, was uniquely placed to shepherd health care reform through Congress. Undoubtedly one of the key factors in the failure of Clinton’s health reform efforts back in ‘94 was the failure of the White House and Congress to work together. In this regard, Obama choosing Daschle was a genius move.  On the other hand however, the issue of Daschle’s tax returns also brought to light his unsavoury history of taking money from lobbyists and the pharmaceutical industry; discussed in Ezra’s piece but examined in greater detail in a typically merciless  Glenn Greenwald post. Greenwald’s money quote:

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.

Bad for health reform but good for ethics? Or just plain shocking?