Noted.

DASCHLE DOWN: On February 1, I urged President Barack Obama to withdraw former Senator Tom Daschle's nomination as secretary of health and human services in order to "revive the change brand he campaigned and won on." On February 2, Obama said he was "absolutely" standing behind his nominee. On February 3, the New York Times joined me in calling on Daschle to step aside, and by that afternoon he had withdrawn.

Daschle's failure to pay back taxes raised questions about his suitability for the job, but it was his ties to healthcare firms-- payments of some $300,000 from companies he might have regulated as HHS secretary--that were most troubling. Daschle's activities, though not officially lobbying, made for a lucrative trade advising clients seeking influence with the government. The appearance of a conflict of interest undermined Obama's promises to bring a new era of responsibility to Washington. Thankfully, Obama--who has imposed tougher ethics and lobbying rules than any president--understood he had "screwed up" and moved swiftly to put aside Daschle as a distraction from moving ahead to fix our broken healthcare system.   KATRINA vanden HEUVEL

NEW LOOK, OLD IDEAS: Faced with the choice between a television-tested, sound bite-savvy African-American spin doctor and a Southern party hack who only recently quit his all-white country club, the Republican National Committee chose the black guy as its new chair. The process only required six ballots. This represents progress for the GOP, but just a little. The new chair, Michael Steele, is no less doctrinaire in his social and economic conservatism--and in his foreign-policy neoconservatism--than the man he beat, Katon Dawson. That didn't stop religious-right operatives from objecting to Steele's suggestion that a party that has lost the past two election cycles might need to tinker with its image to become viable again.

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.