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I am relieved that Mr. Daschle withdrew his name for consideration as Health and Human Services Cabinet Secretary. I don’t know if some of the things that others have said about him are true–that he’s a decent person, that it was an honest mistake, that he was the best person for the job, or that he’s about the only person for the job. I do know that his nomination, considered in tandem with the other nominations (principally Holder and Geithner), was starting to make me nervous.
As I have blogged before, I am fearfully hopeful about Obama. I voted for him and I want to see him succeed, but I do not have confidence in him yet. I am afraid that he will let me down. The cabinet nominations have worried me because they seem symptomatic of disappointments yet to come. That combined with my pre-existing reservations about Obama: his criteria for selecting Supreme Court Justice nominees, his support of embryonic stem cell research, his position on abortion, and his lack of understanding of where money comes from, makes me nervous.
I’m not sure that I buy the arguments that we’ve heard repeated both about Mr. Geithner (our new Treasury secretary) and Mr. Daschle. Is it possible to be “uniquely qualified” for these jobs? There are millions of Americans. I assume that there are also millions of Americans who have paid their taxes honestly and correctly. Was there genuinely no rival to Mr. Geithner at Treasury and none for Mr. Daschle for healthcare czar? Not one?
Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know much about Mr. Geithner, but I do see that Mr. Daschle is relatively unique: there aren’t many people who have the experience that comes of 26 years in Congress, including 9 as majority leader, who have also published a book on how to reform health care. Certainly we need someone who understands the intricacies of how Congress works and has the influence to get a health plan pushed through. Efficacy is good. But the taxes!?!?! The lobbying? Someone else would be better if there were someone else. Obama’s next pick will be instructive because it will let us know who the “someone else” could have been/is. It will be a window on how uniquely wonderful a nominee Daschle was.
A slight tangent: In our zeal to reform political ethics in the nation’s capital, we should be wary of making things so clean and pristine that nothing can get done. It seems plausible both that a fresh-out-of-office senator has something invaluable to offer to industry and also that an industry insider might have invaluable insights to offer to government. Is allowing this to happen wrong? When? Always? To what degree? How can we balance a regard for reasonableness against the true need to decrease the influence of money on our politics?
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