Take Tim Geithner, the hot nerd tapped by Obama to fix the colossal mess left by W. and Henry Paulson, a man who played with live snakes and dead-on-arrival ideas.
How does a guy on the fast track to be Treasury secretary fail to pay $34,000 worth of federal taxes ($43,200, including interest), or forget to check on the immigration status of a house cleaner — the same sort of upstairs-downstairs slip-up that has tripped up other top-drawer prospects on their way to top jobs here? Americans expect the man who’s in charge of the I.R.S. to pay his own taxes.
First of all, as I understand it, these two "offenses" were made clear to the Senate Finance Cmte. in November, when Geithner was tapped. Second -- and I don't have a maid, so I wouldn't know -- is it common for people to continually be checking on the expiration date of your housekeeper's visa? I mean wtf, who does this? And WHO CARES? Same with the Mitt Romney/Rudy Giuliani flap in the debates -- seriously, who thinks this is important?
