Just as I was whining about the lack of coverage of Linda Daschle by the Argus it turns out they had a story in the works! If you're a reader who is interested in this topic, you should really read the Washington Monthly piece entitled "Tom Daschle's Hillary Problem." It's truly outstanding, one of the best pieces in the Linda Daschle genre, shall we say. And it's from a liberal magazine, so the writer isn't hostile to Mrs. Daschle. Compare it to the Argus Leader piece and you'll detect some major problems in the Argus coverage. By my rough count, there are 35 paragraphs of throat-clearing before the Argus article gets to the substantive issues involved, i.e. a major scandal involving the crash of an airplane and questions about whether Daschle interfered with airplane inspections (that gets one paragraph!) and Linda Daschle's lobbying to extend a patent on Claritin for Schering-Plough (that gets a whopping one sentence! and there's no mention of the major fine recently paid by Schering-Plough for Medicaid fraud). The controversial $23 billion Boeing tanker deal, which SDP found out Mrs. Daschle lobbied for or at least signed the forms for, is dismissed by saying "further checking" indicates that's untrue. Well, first, why this deal is so controversial should be explained. Second, why not discuss the evidence--i.e. the lobbying disclosure forms--that show she did lobby on the deal. And, third, it might worth mentioning that someone went to jail this week(!) because of the shenanigans involved. Also, the Argus story doesn't even address the American Airlines issue, which Washington Monthly goes on about:
The landmines in Linda Daschle's professional portfolio will make Hillary Clinton's pork futures and law-firm billings look like mousetraps. For instance, among Linda Daschle's clients is American Airlines, which has had six fatal crashes since 1994 (not even including the World Trade Center flights). The airline has incurred thousands of dollars in federal fines for a host of safety violations, and its employees have been caught in embarrassing drug smuggling stings. Even as its planes have crashed, American has lobbied for years to water down safety and security regulations that might have helped foil the World Trade Center attacks. Yet thanks in part to lobbying efforts by Daschle---and support from her husband---American Airlines got a free pass in the recent airline bailout bill, escaping most legal liability for the hijackings and getting $583 million in cash grants---taxpayer money it will never have to repay.
Washington Monthly also notes the issue of criminal-background checks, which the Argus ignores:
Daschle's position on safety issues came up again when the FAA was considering mandating full criminal-background checks of all airport employees, which she opposed. DOT inspector general Mary Schiavo was at a meeting with then-Transportation Secretary Federico Pena and Daschle at which Daschle vehemently objected. "I thought her position on the background checks was insane," says Schiavo. But Daschle's position shouldn't have come as much of a surprise, given that it's exactly the same one taken by her former employer, the Air Transport Association.
And then the Argus ignores the faulty scanner issue, which Washington Monthly also examines:
Not only have reporters revealed Daschle's role in the airline bailout negotiations, but they have brought to light a provision in the 2000 transportation budget that required the FAA to buy baggage-scanners from one of Daschle's clients, L-3 International. The DOT's inspector general has found the L-3 equipment to be substandard, yet the FAA now has no choice but to purchase one of L-3's scanners for every one it buys from an L-3 competitor. The L-3 machines have been so bad that the one at the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport leaked radiation, and most others purchased by the FAA have not been installed. The inspector general told Congress that the FAA's requirement to buy L-3's machines is one reason that DOT will not be able to meet the new mandate to screen all luggage for bombs for many years.
I also love the line in the Argus about how scrutinizing Mrs. Daschle's lobbying has become an "Internet pastime." Are you joking? The Washington Montly, Slate, and LA Weekly all wrote major stories before I had ever heard of Linda Daschle. All of those articles were written, by the way, about the time Senator Daschle was gearing up to run for President, which causes me to wonder if his prospective Democratic opponents were pushing the stories to keep him out of the race (the articles say Mrs. Daschle's lobbying is the reason he didn't run), but what's critical is that they pre-dated the existence of the South Dakota blogging trend.
Again, note that the liberal journal Slate has also been rough on the Daschles ("It's unsettling enough that the Democrats' Senate leader is married to an influence peddler. It may even unsettle Linda Daschle, who was quoted two years ago saying she took a "not at all favorable" view of Daschle's running for president."). The LA Weekly's coverage was also biting (President Clinton "appointed Linda Daschle deputy administrator of the FAA, putting her in charge of regulating her once-and-future clients; and she wound up running the agency as acting administrator. This, of course, significantly boosted the Daschle family income by hyping the amount Linda could charge her clients when she left government service. She didn’t wait long to cash in.").
So is all this a problem? Well, remember what the Argus Leader said about Mrs. Gingrich in 1995: "The spouses of U.S. leaders should be held to a high standard: Not only should they avoid impropriety, they should avoid all appearances of impropriety." The "appearance of impropriety," eh? Now that's a high standard. Not outright malfeasance, but simply the appearance of it. On this front, Washington Monthly adds:
But when it comes to lobbying Congress, does it really matter whether a congressional spouse lobbies her husband? The House Democrats on whom Daschle focuses her attention aren't likely to ignore calls from the majority leader's wife. And given the soft currency of Washington's access business, it's awfully hard to separate influence in such concrete ways, especially when many of Daschle's clients are lobbying both her husband and the Senate as well. The best example of this conflict came in 1999, when Daschle departed from her traditional aviation portfolio and took up the cause of drug company Schering-Plough, which was waging a fierce battle with the FDA to extend the patent on the allergy drug Claritin beyond its 2002 expiration. Daschle was one of many lobbyists the company hired to press its case, but the contract raised questions about Schering-Plough's motives for hiring her, given that Daschle has no expertise in pharmaceutical issues or at the FDA.
Anyway, it seems to me that the Argus missed a lot of the core issues involved in this matter. But they'll now say Mrs. Daschle has been "covered." That's that.
UPDATE: A reader writes in:
Yeah, the Argus really pulled its punches on this big issue, but you know they did do a story. What's with one of the most powerful women in DC at a big firm having no college degree?
On the latter, yes, that's a bit odd. On the former, well, yes, they deserve credit. The Argus Leader political editor's old alternative newspaper columns are great examples of anti-establishment populism and one guesses that former sentiment was somehow briefly rejuvenated, despite his having joined the dark forces of Gannett. It's just strange that an Argus decision to cover an obvious topic has to come as a pleasant surprise. My objection is to the story's content, or lack thereof.
UPDATE II: Sibby has a lot more on the Linda Daschle story in the Argus. He's not happy with how he was used for the story. He also some interesting stuff about a swanky shindig thrown by Mrs. Daschle for lots of lawmakers in Hawaii, including Senator Daschle. Sibby has links to lots of other items out there too, which I hadn't seen before.
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