Feb 01 2009

The honeymoon, part one

Category: politicsharmonicminer @ 9:07 am

So, is it just me, or is it obvious to everyone else that the press is giving those Obama appointees with vetting problems like unpaid taxes (shoot, undeclared tax liabilities), recent lobbying interests, suspicious connections with misdeeds in the Clinton administration, etc., a very, very easy time of it?

Where are the outraged columnists declaiming the poor judgment of Obama in failing to see to the vetting of his appointees before he names them?  (The Palin “non-vetting” rap on McCain comes to mind, and in that case there wasn’t even a there there.)  What ever happened to “hope and change” and the new breath of honesty and transparency that Obama was going to bring to office?

It’s as if the major media say just enough to claim they’ve covered it (rather like coverage of Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers during the election season), but don’t really give the attention or emphasis they’d give to something similar from Republican appointees.

Somehow, I have this feeling that if, say, Rumsfeld had been implicated in tax avoidance after Bush appointed him as Secretary of Defense, the major media would have been all over him, and we’d be seeing editorial after editorial darkly hinting at skullduggery involving the Republican old boy network.  Or maybe not just hinting, but proclaiming.  In contrast, many commentators on the Right have been pretty reasonable about looking past matters that, had the shoe been on the other foot, would have been firing offenses.

I’ve heard of honeymoon periods before…..  but even honeymooners have to pay the hotel bill, don’t they?

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