Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) has been taking his timein moving the nomination of Tom Daschle forward.

From the Politico

Tom Daschle will tell his old Senate colleagues Monday that he made an honest mistake when he failed to pay taxes on the use of a limousine and a driver — and that he considered the services to be a gift from an old friend rather than income he had to report to the IRS.

It’s not clear how that explanation will play with Republicans, who spent Sunday raising questions about the Obama’s administration’s vetting process — or with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who’s been in a long-running feud with Daschle. 

Daschle’s nomination as secretary of health and human services was expected to sail through the Senate, where he served for 18 years. But Democratic aides complain that Baucus has slow-rolled the nomination, and on Friday it hit a significant roadblock when it was revealed that Daschle had failed to pay more than $100,000 in taxes on the use of a car and driver provided to him by Leo Hindery, a major Democratic donor and longtime friend. 

Baucus — who quickly came to the defense of then-treasury nominee Timothy Geithner when he had tax problems — has said nothing in public about Daschle’s issues.

“The silence has been deafening,” said a Democratic staffer.

If President Obama was truly concerned with ethics he would withdraw Daschle’s nomination and stop handing out waivers to those that violate his ethics rules.  To date the change Obama promised has been riddled with so many exceptions that it is more like chump change and we are the chumps.

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