http://themoderatevoice.com/26229/bonfire-of-the-vanities-2009/ An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right Wed, 15 Feb 2012 04:43:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.2 http://themoderatevoice.com/26229/bonfire-of-the-vanities-2009/comment-page-1/#comment-171690 DLS Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:03:13 +0000 http://themoderatevoice.com/26229/bonfire-of-the-vanities-2009/#comment-171690 People in Washington set their own rules, or rather, choose to ignore rules and laws as they see fit, as we have seen with the recent scandals involving Obama's choices for at least three positions (there may be more), and which we've seen in the past with at least one Republican choice for an executive position. No doubt there are more such instances, not only with members of Congress and the highest-level executive officials, but with so many other people in Washington. A day or two ago I heard the stereotypical, tiresome refrain that the Senate is a "club" and so there was deference shown toward Daschle, but that in private he was "grilled" by his fellow Senators. The experienced cynic in me was led to suspect that what Daschle was subjected to was a number of frantic questions by the Senators about how his tax evasion and other problems may have been discovered or revealed -- so the Senators can evade similar scandals. People in Washington set their own rules, or rather, choose to ignore rules and laws as they see fit, as we have seen with the recent scandals involving Obama's choices for at least three positions (there may be more), and which we've seen in the past with at least one Republican choice for an executive position. No doubt there are more such instances, not only with members of Congress and the highest-level executive officials, but with so many other people in Washington. A day or two ago I heard the stereotypical, tiresome refrain that the Senate is a “club” and so there was deference shown toward Daschle, but that in private he was “grilled” by his fellow Senators. The experienced cynic in me was led to suspect that what Daschle was subjected to was a number of frantic questions by the Senators about how his tax evasion and other problems may have been discovered or revealed — so the Senators can evade similar scandals.

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