Two Americas: one for rich Democrats, one for those of us paying their bills
NRO tells it like it is:
Former senator Tom Dachle accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in payment and services—consulting fees and a chauffered Cadillac—from his business partner, former Global Crossing CEO Leo Hindery Jr., an important player in the Washington–Wall Street axis. Hindery likes to give politicians a ride; back when John Edwards was going coast to coast to preach against the plutocrats in his “Two Americas” road show, he was squired around in Hindery’s corporate jet. Before signing on with Edwards’s campaign, Hindery maxed out his contributions to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, just to cover the bases. Of course Hindery can afford to be generous: Global Crossing will not be remembered as the world’s best-managed company, but it did pay Hindery more than $250 million for his services—all seven months’ worth. The company later went bankrupt. Obama continues to rail against executive pay—but not for those who play sugar-daddy to prominent Democrats. It’s “Two Americas,” after all.
It certainly is. What’s the bottom line, you ask? Just this:
This is a gratuitous insult to the people who pay taxes from the people who live off of them.
It CERTAINLY is. I’m sure Daschle was counting on the Obamedia to run interference for him on this as on all things, but it looks like even the NYT is disgusted — probably by the fact that the info got out despite their usual all-out efforts at collusion and coverup, rather than the actual offense, I’d guess. But still.
Personally, I hope the nomination goes ahead, and he gets the HHS post. After all, Geithner did, and he runs the department charged with collecting the taxes he thinks he ought to be immune from paying. The sooner we all wake up to the screwing we’re getting from our rulers, the better off we’ll be in the long run. Denying him his “just” reward for the same old skullduggery we all know is routine in the Washington cesspool will only serve to lull too many of us back to sleep again, and provide the old “the system works” excuse for averting their eyes to those who’d prefer not to look.
The system patently does NOT work, except for those who have debased it. What we’ve seen with Obama’s corrupt-crony nominations IS the system. It is broken. It needs fixing. And the chances of that happening once this telling contretemps is swept under the rug and forgotten will drop right back to near-nil.
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