Tax Cheat Daschle Crumbles, Withdraws Nomination

Now he can get back to raking in six-figures for putting audiences to sleep and skipping out on his tax obligations.

He'll really suffer.

Tom Daschle has withdrawn his nomination to be Health and Human Services secretary.
That's according to a joint White House statement from President Barack Obama and his former nominee.

Obama said Tuesday he accepted the withdrawal "with sadness and regret."

Daschle has been battling for his nomination since it was disclosed he failed to pay more than $120,000 in taxes.

He doesn't want to be a distraction, like all of Obama's other tax cheats.

Hey, Kwame Kilpatrick is looking for work and Obama can claim he's paid his debt to society. Kwame at HHS!

Update: Allahpundit has a good roundup.

As we've been noting for days now, Daschle would be considered a criminal by the standards the rest of us live under. Maybe now he should be prosecuted. OK, I'll stop dreaming.

DeMint told FOX News that Daschle's failure to pay $134,000 in federal taxes reflects a "problem with integrity" that the government cannot afford to tolerate. DeMint spoke out against Daschle as a number of prominent newspapers, including The New York Times, called for the South Dakota Democrat to drop his bid.

DeMint said he came to that conclusion after it became "obvious" that Daschle knew about the tax problems long before his nomination and did nothing to make it right.

"The average American would likely face criminal charges with tax evasion of this size, yet he did not address the issue until he was nominated," he said.

Daschle has since paid $146,000 in back payments and interest, and apologized on Monday for what he called income tax errors.

I notice many media accounts keep saying "over $120,000" and never give the actual amount. Nothing like utilizing those abundant layers of editors and fact checkers.

If Obama has half a brain, and I'm really beginning to wonder about that, he and his people actually start vetting his appointments properly and any of them that have these little "mistakes" and "oversights" get jettisoned pronto.

Just imagine if we had a real investigative media rather than a sycophantic army of Obama worshippers. He could have been save all these headaches. Now the media looks just as bad as Obama.