I would like to announce to the Obama administration that I am available for any position with the Treasury Department, including any of the top slots still available. My advantages are that I know how to balance a checkbook, and I have never committed any serious crimes or ethical lapses that I am able to clearly recall.
Defending the liberal tradition in history, science, and philosophy.
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Let’s see,
You’ve always paid your taxes? Yes?
You’ve never committed a major crime? No?
OK, the important one: how much did you contribute, or those who you are affiliated with contribute, to President Obama’s campaign fund? Nothing?
We’ll get back to you…
Let’s see, I’ve always paid my taxes. I’ve got nothing on my record worse than a few traffic tickets. I’ve never hired an illegal alien to nanny my kids. I’ve never taken money from lobbyists and then used my influence to grant them governmental favors. I’ve never refused to pay back taxes because they were past the statute of limitations. I never had a tax lien taken on my house. I never…
Oh wait, I just seriously disqualified myself for any position in the Obama adminstration, didn’t I? I mean with a record like that, I’ll never make the list in the first place.
It would seem that you are greatly over- qualified ! I guess that would make you dis-qualified.
The sad thing is I have more confidence in Dean’s ability to bring financial common sense to the Treasury Department than the current Treasury Secretary. As to the currently vacant positions in the Treasury Department, I am sure that the administration could do worse than hire Dean.
They’d find something to nail you on. It doesn’t take much.
For me, my wife’s cousin is a fairly highly ranked official in the Chinese Communist Party, so I’d be attacked as a “Manchurian candidate” (although she’s from Anhui province, not Manchuria). Or they’d find any random rant from a blog somewhere and show how I’m into this or that unpopular ideology.
We also had a yard service for awhile that probably used illegal workers, although we paid the service, not the workers directly. And we had a cleaning lady who came for an hour once every two weeks who had a Mexican accent…
Also, any complexity in one’s personal life is (un)fair game, and anyone who’s lived some has a lot of that.
I’m sympathetic, Foo. There is a good case to be made that while the heavy scrutiny of public officials is a good and healthy thing, at some point we all need to realize that the only truly ‘squeaky clean” person is probably the one who just got born a few hours ago.
If I dig long and hard enough through your garbage cans and troll through all the people who’ve ever known you, I’m pretty sure I can make you look pretty awful. Indeed, you can make something perfectly ethical and perfectly legal look bad if you just spin it right.
I agree. in fact much of the problem is that Obama’s ethical standards are so stringent that qualified candidates with relevant experience are forced to screen themselves out of consideration. For example, Obama’s ban on lobbyists sounded great in theory, but often people with the right skills do have lobbyist gigs on the side. There’s a good story at NPR on this, too.
Plus, there’s a decent amount of scalp-hunting at work here that ultimately goes against our national interest – as Megan McArdle puts it,
Oh please, Geithner’s tax avoidance is not some “small breach” it’s something that is what his field is interested in (taxes) and it’s something he had been warned directly many times. He’s a smart man, he should have known what he’s doing was wrong.
But I’m OK with him as Treasury Sec because he does sound like one of the few persons suited to the job. And his substantial ethical lapse isn’t going to cause a conflict of interest.
But please, spare me the BS about Obama’s “Stringent Ethical Standards”. Let’s face it, that’s all talk, talk that every candidate in my lifetime has campaigned on. He should just dump that and tacitly admit that he’s just another politician, no better no worse and that he needs Geithner despite his obvious ethical failings
My personal tests for these would give a far higher weight to things like large tax issues, policy weirdness, and genuine conflicts-of-interest – in this sense, Daschle and Geithner’s were legit, as were “Chas” Freeman’s notions about the 6/4/1989 crackdown in China being “too weak”. And too many of Obama’s choices are petty political machine crooks like this guy Carrion.
But “nanny-gate” issues are genuinely dumb. All these sorts of scandals show is we have far too many stupid laws.
Or, failing that, you might want to move to Connecticut, become a co-chair of the state’s judiciary committee and run the Catholic Church: http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2009/03/surprise-you-no-longer-have-church.html
Why doesn’t he just go out on a limb and Pick Warren Buffet? It’s not like he’d be any worse than his previous picks. The issue of that happening was discussed at some point anyhow. *Shrug*
Oh well. My year of ambivalence is not up yet so we’ll see if shit changes come January….
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