CNN On Daschle’s Withdrawal: “Stunning Setback To Health Reform”
Objective.
On a related note, the media is busy spinning Obama as a victim of Washington politics:
All of the broadcast and cable network anchors challenged President Barack Obama in some questions during their Tuesday afternoon Oval Office interview sessions, but CBS’s Katie Couric and NBC’s Brian Williams also painted Obama as a victim of Washington’s culture which forced HHS Secretary nominee Tom Daschle’s withdrawal. “You campaigned to change the culture in Washington, to change the politics as usual culture here,” Couric noted as she empathized: “Are you frustrated? Do you think it is much, much harder to do that than you ever anticipated?”
Williams noted “you lost two nominees, two appointments today,” so, as if Obama were an uninvolved casualty of unfairness: “Did that make you angry, I imagine?” Echoing Couric, Williams fretted: “How do you prevent the lesson from being that, no matter how lofty the goals of the new guy coming in, Washington wins, in the end?”
Maybe it wasn’t partisanship or Washington politics that won out but rather the fact that three of Obama’s nominees have been tax evaders and two of them had to withdraw because of it (I’m still amazed that Geithner snuck through).
What’s even worse about this spin is the fact that Obama knew they were tax evaders. In all three cases it was Obama’s vetting team that located the failure to pay taxes, but Obama went ahead and nominated these people anyway knowing full well the culpability for not paying their taxes.
But I guess we can’t let a little thing like reality get in the way of all that hope ‘n change.
