Daschle gone. Good call!

So, now two nominees who have withdrawn because of not quite clean money deals. As someone who was not thrilled with Daschle's nomination, while Howard Dean was shunned, I am glad that Daschle has withdrawn from the race; I like the BBC's title for the news report:
"Obama suffers blow over nominees", which then reports that:

Only hours before Mr Daschle pulled out of the process, Nancy Killefer, nominated by Mr Obama to be the government's budget watchdog also withdrew over tax issues.

In January, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson announced he was withdrawing from consideration as commerce secretary after an investigation was launched into a state contract that had been given to his campaign donors.

Republican Senator Judd Gregg was on Tuesday appointed instead, the second from his party to join Mr Obama's cabinet.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was confirmed last week only after long arguments over his failure to pay $34,000 (£24,500) in taxes he owed until shortly before he was nominated.

Announcing his withdrawal, Mr Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader, said he would have not been able to operate "with the full faith of Congress and the American people".

He said he would "not be a distraction" to Mr Obama's agenda.

Good work is punished. Yes, punished.

When Governor Howard Dean was a candidate in the Democratic primaries, in now what seems like eons ago, I liked him for a number of reasons.  

One, there was no question of the "buy one, get two" approach that has become the norm, where spouses also become campaigners and phantom-candidates of sorts.  Howard Dean's wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg Dean, was simply happy to continue on with her practice even as her husband was on the campaign trail. Which is how it ought to be--after all, the election is not about the spouses, but about the candidates, right?  It was bizarre when news reports about her even mentioned about how she does not apply makeup, as if that heavily influenced whether Howard Dean will be a good president!

Second, I liked how it was clear that Dean couldn't care about the religious talk that politicians are now expected to indulge in.  He fumbled on those kind of questions, and it was so bloody refreshing.

Finally, the contrarian that I am, I loved his notorious "scream".  In fact, I was watching it on liveTV  when it happened.  I remember thinking that here is an honest response from a politician, instead of all the fake emotions.  It didn't take long for me to realize that I was in the minority, when in a matter of hours that response from Dean got labelled as the "Dean Scream", and that alone probably ended his candidacy.

After all that, Howard Dean worked hard as the DNC chair--his election was opposed by many Dems, who thought Dean was way off the center.  The guy put up a good fight, and came up with a strategy to fight elections in all the states--which was quickly dismissed as an outlandish idea.  Later Obama comes along, and goes after all the states--as much as Dean had worked on.

And, now Howard Dean is nowhere to be found in Obama's administration.  Reports even suggest that he was snubbed even at the event where Obama named the new DNC chair.

When Obama named Keane, Dean was in American Samoa doing DNC work,

"If he had been asked to go to that event, he would have been there," Jim Dean, the chairman's brother, told Politico.

"The snub (Thursday) was no accident," one Dean ally said. "I guarantee you he would have rescheduled his trip if asked to attend."