IRS employment application packets notify potential workers that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration vets all candidates and current employees "who have violated or are violating laws, rules or regulations related to the performance of their duties." President-elect Obama is standing by a nominee who would oversee the IRS but might not even qualify for a lesser job at the agency. This is insanity.
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs calls Geithner's transgressions "honest mistakes." Media outlets like the Associated Press have attempted to downplay his snubbing of the law as mere "tax goofs." When Democrats like Geithner, Al Franken and Charlie Rangel fail to pay up what they legally owe, they're just goofs. When you or I object to forking over more than what we're already paying, Vice President Joe Biden calls us unpatriotic.
Even more maddeningly, Senate Republicans Orrin Hatch and Lindsay Graham insist on defending Geithner as "very competent" and "the right guy." Never mind Geithner's atrocious role in fostering the spending binge of financial giant Citigroup and engineering the teetering company's $52 billion federal bailout. Those who take his tax evasion and record of failure seriously are guilty of "think[ing] in small political terms," Graham lectured.
Tell that to the millions of self-employed entrepreneurs across the country who sweat bullets paying their quarterlies and ensuring their papers are in order down to the hundredth decimal place. It's fecklessness like this that has earned Washington Republicans the "Stupid Party" moniker.
Screw up, move up: It's the Washington way.
Michelle Malkin makes news and waves with a unique combination of investigative journalism and incisive commentary. She is the author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild .
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