The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Haunted Honeymoon?

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In the wake of the news that Treasury Secretary nominee Tim Geithner failed to pay $34,000 in federal taxes for a housekeeper, President-elect Obama's allies in the media are starting to see a pattern of blunders, given that it is coming off Bill Richardson's decision to withdraw his nomination as Commerce Secretary. The NY Times calls the Geithner news, "the latest of several stumbles by the previously smooth-running Obama," the Washington Post describes it as "the latest in a series of missteps by Obama's team," and the Associated Press refers to it it as "another jarring distraction just days before Obama's inauguration" that "raises fresh questions about his team's judgment, vetting procedures and political sensitivities." The AP also quotes Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution as saying the episode is "really quite stunning for a transition team that has so carefully studied everything that might go wrong, and which was faultless up until about a week ago."

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Interloper| 1.14.09 @ 11:22AM

You read with a jaundiced eye. Those articles largely express surprise at any kind of imperfection by the Obama transition. They're not saying it is a troubled transition.

As for Geithner, anyone with even my lawyer, but not tax expert background, understands that his problems are not very significant. I doubt even one percent of American workers fall into the tax category his accountants overlooked. The transition team did appropriate due diligence by reporting the issues itself and having Geithner correct his miscalculated taxes.

ruth| 1.14.09 @ 1:46PM

Jaundiced Eye? Interloper, you are blind. Your frothing-at-the-mouth defense of the constant parade of demo corruption is a laugher. You remind me of a hamster running in a wheel--working furiously but going nowhere.