Seriously, what is going on with Obama's nominees?

[Seen the light]

Are people not being vetted? What the hell is going on?

[tekisui]

1. Entrenched Entitlement in Our Government.

[NightWatcher]

2. a cnn story read "Obama nominee withdraws due to tax issues"

I had to click to see which one of three this was in reference to, or to see if there was a fourth.

[Seen the light]

4. It's getting sad and embarrassing

I keep thinking these new stories are jokes, but they keep ending up being real. :-(

[sharp_stick]

3. I've been wondering the same thing

is everyone in that city a tax cheat? Now that I've written it down it does look stupid, they're politicians of course they're all tax cheats.

It shouldn't be this hard to pull together qualified people that don't have 10,000 pounds of baggage to go with them.

[jobycom]

10. The bigger problem is how far the Republicans will go to destroy a nominee.

Of course everyone in DC is a tax cheat. Most rich people are, even if they try to be honest. Tax laws are complicated, and what seems like an honest but aggressive deduction at tax time looks nefarious when framed by the other side in a public spotlight.

But it's worse than that. The Republicans have a ruthless knack for exposing open secrets and acting shocked to discover they are going on. All through the 20th century there was an unwritten political rule that you didn't go after politicians because of affairs, for instance. Most powerful people in DC have an affair now and then, and they aren't all that discrete. But in the 90s the Republicans couldn't find anything else to use against the unassailably successful Clinton, so the Republicans broke the long-time rule, dragged Clinton's personal life into the public, and tarnished his name. As we all know now, and should have known then, even his accusers were sleeping around, and all of them were relying on that same unwritten rule to protect themselves, but they didn't care. They wanted Clinton too badly.

That's the part that angers me. They know that they are all guilty of what they accuse the other side of, but they don't care. They torch the house we all live in to get rid of one sheet of wallpaper they don't like. Think about it--a Republican accusing someone else of tax cheating? That's like the pot calling a snowflake black.

[sharp_stick]

13. Let's use it against them

Pick Howard Dean for the job. I don't think he's all that rich and the pukes hate him. I would love to see the writhing going on if the Administration actually picked someone that would make big changes.

[jobycom]

26. Let's nominate Dean, then. But I think you'd be surprised.

His reputation with both parties in DC is of a choker. You might even have a case where the Republicans try to get him in and the Democrats try to keep him out.

[biopowertoday]

17. Lots of threads on this board also--so not just Republicans that want Daschle out.

[jobycom]

23. That's true. nt

[Still Sensible]

5. I think there is a hole in the vetting process they set up

and, quite frankly, a lack of candor on the part of some of the nominees.

[Peregrine Took]

7. You are absolutely correct. A little of both = a big mess.

I bet "No drama" Obama is ready to pull his hair out with these distractions.

[jobycom]

6. Normal politics. Same thing happened to Clinton.

They were pulling out stuff no one had thought of with Clinton. Unpaid taxes on illegal immigrant nannies, and stuff like that. Stuff no one even thinks to look at looks more serious when the other side pulls it out and makes a national item of it.

A lot of it is timing, too. In the 80s our side got a SCOTUS nominee to withdraw after he admitted he had tried pot in college. After he withdrew, everyone sort of thought about it and wondered how many people in college in the 60s and 70s hadn't smoked pot, and after that it became a non-issue, to the point where people didn't care about W getting a cocaine conviction or DUIs in his younger days.

No matter how you vet someone, the other side will dig deeper and nastier to cause your nominees problems, and they will take minor issues and create major infractions out of them. Our side does it, too.

[Uzybone]

8. best answer

this is nothing new.

[EFerrari]

11. Normal for Democrats. Nobody checked out the cabal Bush hired.

[jobycom]

16. They did, but they didn't have the clout to do anything about it.

We found a lot of dirt on their nominees, but we had no power in Congress and the PR Department for the Republican Party (the Mainstream Media) didn't cover it, so there was no effect. Hell, we caught W and Cheney both lying about DUIs before the election and the media attacked the person who had uncovered Bush's DUI instead of attacking Bush for lying about it. Same with his cocaine conviction. They not only got James Hatfield's book pulled, but made it look like the stuff in his book was false based solely on the author's past, and eventually drove him to suicide.

The media is on their side. Everyone should tattoo that on their eyelids. Even when the media is nice to us for a while, as with Obama, they are on the Republicans' side, and are just setting us up for a harder fall.

[EFerrari]

19. Yes, that's more accurate. I'm surprised, frankly, that the media

hasn't been worse and sooner this time.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

15. Refresh my memory......

How many of Bush's nominees withdrew or encountered stiff resistance when he was setting his (mis-)administration back in 2001? Did Ashcroft face the same level of resistance as Holder did for Attorney General? Nearly all of Bush's cabinet nominees (and later members) previously sat on the boards of industries and organizations that they would have to be monitoring and regulating but I don't remember any major outrages about any of that at the time. It's possible that I might not have been paying enough attention but I don't recall a single nominee of his that had to withdraw because of some kind of conflict over taxes or something else. I guess the type of things that make our nominees unsuitable for posts don't matter much to Senate Democrats (or Repukes) whenever the Repukes are in charge of nominating people for posts? Double standard much? The last time confirmation hearings were this contentious was, if I remember correctly, during Clinton's first term (surprise, surprise, surprise). Don't get me wrong. I do think that our public servants need to set an example by following the same laws that everybody else does and I DO appreciate that our people at least admit their mistakes and try to rectify them but it seems to me like some "dirt" can be found (or made up, taken out of context, etc.) on just about anybody in politics and it's a shame that we become deprived of certain otherwise good and qualified choices for some positions as a result of these inevitable "fishing expeditions". *sigh* Oh well. I guess it's better for Obama not to have to deal with the added baggage- we can certainly ill afford it right now.

[jobycom]

21. Linda Chavez, Bernie Kerick. But read post #16. We had stuff on a lot of their nominees.

Ashcroft, Pearle, Wolfowitz, Ted Olson... There was evidence of everything from treason to perjury to extreme wackiness (crisco annointing, remember?). We had better stuff than they do, and the media just ignored it.

Check out Vitter and Craig. If one of our guys got caught as they were, they'd be gone by Friday. There is not one America, as one of our top figures said and then learned when he was exposed for the same thing every Republican gets caught doing.

[Window]

24. Right. Shit happens. Not the first time, won't be the last.

[NashVegas]

9. They're Standard Washington Power Players

And have all the corruption that goes along with it.

[Boomerang Diddle]

12. This happens with every new president.

The majority of Obama's nominees have passed by with flying colors, but it's the few with problems that get all the attention.

[biopowertoday]

14. 3 of the recent ones thought they were above the law. simple as that.

[marlakay]

18. I think Obama's mind was set with a couple of them

and he wanted them no matter what his principles be damned. And now its biting him in the butt.

That's what happens when you set a high standard for yourself and can't follow it. He's not perfect and we all know that but he is the one who set up the morals he isn't following now.

I bet its waging a deep war inside himself. Personally I wonder if he is listening to Rahm too much and this is what has caused him to loosen his principles.

[Why Syzygy]

20. Don't worry! The REPUBLICAN will get confirmed. nt

[backscatter712]

22. On the bright side, Holder's in!

Holder's a good one - I really like him!

B-)

Just a reminder that not all of Obama's cabinet nominees are fuckups.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

31. Holder = fantastic pick. That one has the most potential to make a HUGE difference in gov't policy.

[Phoonzang]

25. He's just giving DU something to talk about.

Consider it a favor.

[Clear Blue Sky]

27. Lousy vetting.

If we had a strong economy and world peace, these probably wouldn't be issues.

[fadedrose]

28. I'm willing to jump on a Greyhound to DC

and question the candidates for these positions myself - FREE...I could not possibly do any worse. Biden was a good pick, then the wheels fell off the train.

Whoever is helping Obama doesn't want him reelected in 2012 from the start he's getting. I'm cringe and have a dread of putting on the TV in the morning to see "Now what?"...

Someone should remind the President that it's "make new friends but keep the old." not "make new friends and lose the old," and that "love your enemies," does not mean to the exclution of all others.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

29. Every President hit's little bumps in the road. No biggy.

[oviedodem]

30. You can't vet what they DON"T tell you; it's that simple