Bloodthirsty Liberal

Hiring an illegal nanny: $500 fine.

Not paying taxes for two years: restitution, plus penalty and interest.

Not paying taxes for two more years, after being caught: priceless fool:

The next act in Obama’s Treasury Secretary drama has been set for Jan. 21 at the request of Sen. Jon Kyl. The rescheduling wasn’t related to the tax-dodging disclosures.

A Senate hearing to confirm Timothy Geithner as U.S. Treasury secretary has been delayed until Jan. 21 after a Republican senator said he had a schedule conflict.
Republican Jon Kyl of Arizona, a member of the Senate Finance Committee which confirms the Treasury secretary, objected to the scheduled hearing date of Jan. 16, Kyl’s spokesman, Ryan Patmintra, said in an interview. Kyl, also a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is scheduled to attend a confirmation hearing for Attorney General-designee Eric Holder tomorrow, Patmintra said.

…

Kyl hasn’t decided how he’ll vote on the nomination after Geithner told panel members yesterday that he paid almost $50,000 in back taxes and interest to the Internal Revenue Service.

…

Meantime, Rush Limbaugh reminds listeners that Joe Biden told us paying higher taxes is patriotic. What does that make tax-dodger Geithner?

This is hardly a news flash, but Rush Limbaugh is must-listen radio. He ran an audio montage of at least a dozen drive-by media types (his term) all of whom had been infected by the “honest mistake” or “common mistake” virus. (If it’s such a common mistake, Rush wondered, why hasn’t the law been changed?)

But the best clip was from that Newsweek Crayolist Jonathan Alter (Obama hagiography book contract in hand) who said that not only was it a common mistake, but that Geithner was crucial to the nation’s well-being, as he was the only one who understood TARP. The only one. (It is worth noting that Alter’s book is to cover Obama’s first 100 days. Perhaps his dishonorable conflict of interest will expire after that period.)

But none of us could pick Geithner out of a line-up (where he may well find himself if there’s a divinity). The media hoors don’t give a rat’s patootie about him; it’s Obama they will die for (because he is to die for, sigh). They could no more report negatively on him than they could find anything favorable to say about President Bush. Their coverage of will be just as dishonest as their coverage of W.

Last point about Rush: he read from the TARP bill (proving at least one other person has a grasp of the bill), making it very clear that Congress empowered the Treasury Secretary to be the bail-out czar. Barney Frank and others may be quick to blame the Bush Administration for any and all failures so far (even though Congress wrote the damn bill), but don’t they really mean just one member of the Administration, namely Henry Paulson? Anyone seen him in the last month? This bill was as much his idea as anyone else’s; where the hell has he been keeping himself?

And are we really about to install as the next czar someone whose first instinct when confronted with an “honest mistake” was to compound it? This is neither change, nor anything we can believe in.

PS: Michelle notes this blog’s coverage of media whitewashing.