Fad-tastic: Money for Nothing Edition

Forget pillbox hats and dark stockings, this season is all about not paying your taxes! This is the new (for this administration) fad sweeping Washington this season, and boy-oh-boy has it got people's heads a-turnin'. And as of this week, tax evasion is not just for stuffed shirts and anarchists anymore...it's for the douchey elite, too!

So not paying your taxes, or letting them slip by you unknowingly is pretty ridiculous, and yes Tim Geithner, Tom Daschle, Nancy Killefer we expect better from you (not you though, Joe Francis, this smacks of your special brand of asshat-ness). More than the taxes, I wish these politicians would have thought ahead, as in how their lack of keeping up with these things can reflect poorly on an administration, and even a whole party. It didn't take more than a few minutes after Daschle stepped down for the squawkboxes to gear up against Obama and his so-called ethics. Even the The NYTimes had this to say:

Every four or eight years a new president arrives in town, declares his determination to cleanse a dirty process and invariably winds up trying to reconcile the clear ideals of electioneering with the muddy business of governing. Mr. Obama on his first day in office imposed perhaps the toughest ethics rules of any president in modern times, and since then he and his advisers have been trying to explain why they do not cover this case or that case.

Yeah, the new President sucks on ethical policy, nothing like the Ned Flanders-esque ethics of the last guy. It's a shame that people he thought he could trust turned out to be hoarding some extra cash, and that he didn't know about it right off the bat. Perhaps, though, we should cut him a little slack considering all he has accomplished in his first two weeks (Global Gag Rule gone, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act signed, etc). I'm not of the belief that we should just be happy with anything that is remotely better than the last administration. We should always expect and demand higher of our leaders, especially one as determined and dedicated as Obama.

Though, anyone who has ever worked in an office (hell, anyone who has ever watched "The Office") should know that getting in and fixing everything that is wrong with a broken system on the first try is near impossible. Mostly because you often work with people who are used to doing things the shittier way b/c it's easier than learning something new (the new way usually includes more work also, and no one cottons to that). Obama can only control so much, he's trying to surround himself with honest, intelligent, dedicated people, but as it's his responsibilty to vet, dig and learn about them, it's also their responsibility to not fuck him over once he gives them a chance. These couple of people (all respected politcal figures mind you) shouldn't be represenitive of Obama breaking his promise of new ethics in Washington. We've got time for this to suss out. Just give him a hot minute.