A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

ABC News has obtained the Senate Finance Committee Report on Tom Daschle's nomination to be Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which indicates that Daschle's tax problems were even more substantial than earlier reported.

The report indicates that Daschle's failure to pay more than $101,000 taxes on the car and driver a wealthy friend let him use from 2005 through 2007 is not the only tax issue the former Senate Majority Leader has been dealing with since his December nomination prompted a more thorough examination of his income tax returns.

Mr. Daschle also didn't report $83,333 in consulting income in 2007.

This is embarrassing. Not only should Daschle not be the HHS Secretary, he should not have a job as the director of the White House's Office of Health Reform. President Obama has been on quite a kick recently, telling corporations that the bonus payments they make should fall under the purview of the federal government, playing the role of the morality police by calling those bonus payments "shameful," and presuming that he has the right to determine the proper "time" for companies to make a profit (how the President has the right to lecture companies on the proper time to make a profit is anyone's guess but anyone with even a modicum of business experience would shoot back that it is the job of companies to make a profit all the time so that they can continue to provide their services, so that they can continue to employ people, and, if the company is public, so that it can continue to do right by its shareholders). Why doesn't he use his power to scold and lecture where it is needed and chastise people like Tim Geithner and Tom Daschle for not paying their taxes? And why, despite their joint tax cheat status, does the President insist on giving people like Geithner and Daschle jobs?

Come on, Mr. President. Put your money where your mouth is. Denounce greed. Denounce irresponsibility. Denounce people like Geithner and Daschle who prevent your Administration from having even a scintilla of credibility as it seeks to lecture others on issues of financial morality.

Or are you just like every other politician in your willingness to cast aside HopeAndChange when hypocrisy better serves your political purposes?