More corruption from Daschle - was pushing his private equity friend for top job in Obama Admin

[TeamJordan23]

Tom Daschle backed the patron who paid him a million-dollar salary and supplied him with a free car and driver for a job inside the Obama administration, two Democrats said Monday.

Leo Hindery, whose InterMedia Partners employed the former Senate majority leader, had been mentioned as a possible secretary of commerce or U.S. trade representative.

"Tom was pushing for him," said one Democratic source.

Obama's aides rejected Daschle's suggestion that a top job go to Hindery, for whose private equity fund Daschle had served as a rainmaker and adviser.

Jenny Backus, who has been helping to shepherd Daschle through his confirmation process for the administration, declined to comment on discussions about a job for Hindery.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18336.html

[Thrill]

1. This guy is a Weasel. Pathetic

[Political Tiger]

2. How is this "corruption?" n/t

[WinkyDink]

10. All they've got on Blago is phone-calls.

[Political Tiger]

12. And? n/t

[WinkyDink]

17. And the OP indicates a more established bit of persuasion.

[Political Tiger]

18. The OP indicates no wrong doing whatsoever.

I've got people jobs where I used to work before. I knew there was some openings and I suggested to my boss that these friends of mine would be good for the positions and because my boss trusted me, he hired them, and it worked out great. Happens all the time. People get other people jobs all the time.

Daschel "pushed" for this guy and Obama "rejected Daschle's suggestion." That's all this "source," who apparently doesn't have a name, claims. There are no allegations of "corruption" or like in the case of Blago, pay-to-play.

[zulchzulu]

14. It isn't...and the article has an interesting tidbit...

Democratic senators on Monday opened up a new line of defense for Daschle, saying his back-tax problems stemmed from Hindery’s failure to process the proper IRS paperwork on the limo rides.

Hmmm....

[firedupdem]

3. I don't care for him regarding the tax issue but politico isn't

ever going to be a positive source for Democrats.

[Clio the Leo]

4. I heard he leaves the toilet seat up when he goes potty....

.... and his wife falls in in the middle of the night.

PA-LEEZE!!!

[marylanddem]

5. Is there a Dr. Dean in the house?

Daschle is an embarrassment to Obama. Kick his weasly ass to the curb & bring in the good doctor.

[ellenfl]

6. oh, please. not only is this NOT corruption but

everybody and his brother does it. i bet y'all would have screamed about bobby kennedy getting his ag job. sheesh. you seem to have forgotten that it's not what you know but who you know.

ellen fl

[TeamJordan23]

7. So why were we all up in arms when Bush was doing this - appointing his buddies to jobs in the Admin

This is all uncomfortably reminiscent of the Bush administration's abhorrent interpretation of what constitutes proper ethics. Perhaps no laws have been broken -- but since when is that the standard for holding high public office?

[SuperTrouper]

8. That's right, look how Bush tried to shove Harriet Meiers into the SCOTUS

[ellenfl]

24. because this is recommending, not appointing. eom

[WinkyDink]

11. Robert was appointed by the President. There was no quid pro quo.

[marshall]

9. The Obama vetting process is really going to clean out Washington

Thank goodness Obama is pulling out all the dirty laundry on the people he's going to trust with the future of this country.

[global1]

15. This Is Change We Can Believe In?..........

Daschle is old Washington. Dump Daschle.

[marshall]

20. The change is the ratcheted up vetting process

Shenanigans like this have gone unacknowledged in Washington for years--the public doesn't learn about it and the folks in the beltway as well as the media winks and nods at each other and keeps their mouths shut. Obama is shining a light and the cockroaches are scurrying for cover!

[global1]

21. So If The Vetting Process Has Been Racheted Up - Why Haven't These Tax.....

problems surfaced during the process? Why are we just learning about them now. And if the vetting process is supposed to be doing it's job - it should be culling out people like Daschle. I'm sorry - this is making Obama look foolish. Why is Obama still sticking by this guy? He should have said - we missed this in our vetting process - I'm sorry - but I'll have to withdraw Daschle from nomination? That would have been the right thing for Obama to do.

Now the only way to save face is to have Daschle withdraw his name. This way Obama can say he reluctantly accepts Daschle's decision and we then continue on with people that don't have baggage.

[asphalt.jungle]

23. they did show up

this was in daschle's file that was submitted to the committee back in december, the republicans on the committee timely leaked the info that was provided to them to the press so that they could make hay of it. that's how it works, they didn't "discover" anything.

[L. Coyote]

13. "Yata Yata" said one Democratic source, out of 100 million.

[Jennicut]

16. Daschle is just too corrupt.

I don't mind him politically, he is a bit too DLC for me but I don't hate him as some here do. However, he is playing politics with his newfound status as an Obama friend and needs to be let go. President Obama needs to learn that sometimes "friends" who helped you deserve nothing in return if they try to take advantage of you.

[mod mom]

19. HINDERY "EMBELLISHED" his background-at odds with family & others who knew him:

READ THIS FROM THE NYT:

But there is more to Mr. Hindery than the stick-figure portrayal of a rich, hard-working president. Realistic as he has been in tackling TCI's problems, when it comes to his own life he has the puzzling habit of relating stories about the difficulties of his childhood that are at odds with the accounts of his family members.

At a 7 A.M. breakfast interview recently at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, during one of his frequent business trips to New York, the 50-year-old executive recounted how he had left home at the age of 13 to fend for himself.

His parents didn't bother looking for him, he said, because ''they didn't care if I left.''

-SNIP

The rest of his family, however, doesn't remember it that way. In separate telephone interviews, Mr. Hindery's widowed mother, sister and brother all said that Mr. Hindery lived at home until he graduated from high school. His younger brother, Michael, a dean at Stanford Medical School, remembers that when Leo Hindery was in his early 20's, he got his kid brother a job at the mining company where he then worked, Utah International, based in San Francisco.

=snip

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B01E1D6163CF932A15755C0A96E958260

DO WE NEED ANOTHER APPOINTMENT WITH AN INDIVIDUAL WHO IS AT ODDS WITH THE TRUTH? Sounds like a quid pro quo for Daschle!

[biopowertoday]

22. More about Hindery from OP here:

............Hindery, though, was also in the top rung of donors: He personally contributed more than $1 million to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee under Daschle's leadership.



He also backed Edwards far beyond almost any other donor. Campaign finance records show that he underwrote private jet travel for Edwards’ 2008 campaign, a campaign finance loophole that has been since closed. A former aide said Hindery paid the bulk of Elizabeth Edwards’ travel expenses.

The story of the Hindery-Daschle business partnership, however, dates back to 2005, when both men found themselves, rather abruptly, out of work.

Hindery, who divides his time between New York and Charlotte, N.C., made his money in cable television. A former Seattle newsboy and executive at the San Francisco Chronicle, he came to prominence when he became CEO of cable giant Tele-Communications, Inc. in 1997. He was hailed for turning the company around and sold it to AT&T in 1999, reportedly collecting $300 million in stock options in the process.

He also did a stint as CEO of the telecommunications firm Global Crossing, and in 2002 sued the then-bankrupt company for $822,000 in back salary and rent for his apartment in the Waldorf-Astoria.

[demo dutch]

25. Wow.. Good riddance