Posted on 09/27/2004 7:39:47 AM PDT by Liz
January 17, 2003
The real reason Tom Daschle didn’t run for president.
The national press corps didn’t bother to tell you why Tom Daschle, the Democrats’ Senate leader, decided at the 11th hour not to run for president: In the end, he calculated that he couldn’t survive scrutiny of his persistent service to the clients of his wife. Linda
Daschle has been one of the airline industry’s top lobbyists for two decades — when she wasn’t busy running the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which explains why, just 11 days after the 9/11 attacks, her husband rushed through the Democratic Senate, which he controlled, the $15 billion bailout for the airline industry, a notorious taxpayer rip-off.
Right after then-Congressman Tom Daschle dumped his first wife for a younger, prettier one, the former Miss Kansas Linda Daschle went to work as chief lobbyist for the Air Transport Association the airline industry’s main lobby; she then became the senior vice president of the American Association of Airport Executives; and these days hangs her hat at the pricey top Washington law/lobby shop Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, headed by former GOP Senate leader and ex–Reagan chief of staff Howard Baker — where she peddles influence on behalf of a long list of lucrative aviation clients.
The clients for whom Linda lobbied brought more than $5.86 million into Baker, Donelson in one three-year period, including Northwest Airlines ($870,000 from 1997 through 2001) and American Airlines ($1.26 million in fees).
Northwest was already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy even before 9/11. American, which has had six fatal crashes since 1994 (not counting 9/11) and has been repeatedly fined by the FAA for a skein of safety violations, had the reputation as the most unsafe major U.S. carrier.
Yet these two clients of Linda Daschle’s got nearly $1 billion from the airline bailout her husband pushed into law — thanks to which Northwest (which was the second largest contributor to Senator Daschle’s 1998 campaign, and which scooped up $404 million in government cash) actually posted a $19 million profit in the third quarter after the twin-towers attacks.
And, as the lone senator to vote against the bailout, Illinois GOPer Peter Fitzgerald, decried, “The only people who got bailed out were the shareholders. The 1 million airline employees were left twisting in the wind.” So much for the populist noises that occasionally come from Senator Daschle’s mouth. The Daschles also made sure that the bailout exempted American (which has consistently lobbied against tougher airline safety standards) and other carriers with lousy safety records from any real liability to lawsuits from the families of 9/11 victims.
Moreover, the General Accounting Office found that the airline industry’s representations to Congress to secure the bailout overstated its anticipated losses from 9/11 by as much as $5 billion.
Before 9/11, Senator Daschle pushed through the sleazy deal in the backrooms of Capitol Hill that forced the FAA to buy defective baggage scanners from one of Linda’s other clients, L-3 International (from which Linda’s firm raked in $440,000 in the ’97–’01 period).
Under a provision Linda’s husband had slipped into the 2000 budget for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the FAA was required to buy one of L-3’s scanners for every one it purchased from the company’s competitors. The L-3 scanners were found to be substandard by DOT’s inspector general; FAA tests of the scanners showed high failure rates; and most have not yet been installed because of their defects (the one at the Dallas–Fort Worth airport — another of Linda’s clients — leaked radiation), which is a major reason DOT says it won’t be able to screen all luggage for explosives for years to come.
In one of those corporate-coddling moves for which the Clinton administration became infamous, President Bubba 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. Example:
While running the FAA, she awarded Loral Space Technologies ((headed by Bernie Schwartz who sold US tech to the Chinese and a major Democratic contributor that figured in the ’96 campaign-finance scandals) a nearly $1 billion contract from the federal government; after Linda passed through the revolving door to Baker, Donelson, Loral paid the lobby shop $740,000 in 2000-2001 for Linda’s services.
When the FAA was pondering making mandatory a criminal-background check for all airport employees, Linda, who was then running the agency, vigorously opposed this common-sense move — echoing the position of the airline-industry lobby that had previously employed her. A particularly odiferous episode involved charges that the senator and his wife had tried to sabotage safety inspections of an air-charter firm owned by Murl Bellew, a Daschle family friend who taught Tom how to fly.
The scandal erupted and triggered an official investigation when a Bellew small plane chartered by the Indian Health Service crashed in North Dakota, killing the pilot and three doctors en route to an Indian-reservation clinic.
Forest Service inspectors had been arguing that Bellew’s firm should be banned from getting government contracts because the operation had been unsafe for years. Senator Daschle obligingly pushed legislation taking the Forest Service out of the business of inspecting small-plane carriers, and senior FAA bureaucrats said Linda had also tried to submarine a proposal to train Forest Service inspectors to conduct FAA investigations.
An FAA inspector reported a cover-up: Documents showing the Daschles’ assiduous efforts to minimize inspections of Bellew’s planes were shredded by FAA officials under Linda’s thumb. While an I.G. report failed to find Linda guilty of any lawbreaking, there’s an old saying in Washington: The scandal isn’t what’s illegal, the real scandal is what’s legal.
It’s a sign of how lazy, blinkered and source-coddling the Beltway’s national press corps is when one considers that none of all this made the dissections of the senator’s presidential withdrawal — even though a tough piece by the Washington Monthly’s Stephanie Mencimer in the January 2002 issue laying out much of it was still on newsstands. As she observed, “It doesn’t take Lee Atwater to see how Mrs. Daschle’s professional life might play out in a nasty re-election or presidential campaign: ‘Sen. Daschle’s wife lobbyist for nation’s most dangerous airline,’ or ‘majority leader’s wife lobbied to make airlines less safe.’”
Linda Daschle has tried to pooh-pooh her obvious conflicts of interest as an influence peddler, telling The New York Times last August that the staff members she lobbies “are pretty junior and may or may not know who I am” — a mind-boggling, risible assertion.
But her senator/leader husband has always refused to make public his and his wife’s tax returns, despite repeated press requests. As a presidential candidate, Tom Daschle could not have avoided giving the press a look at those returns — which would have spelled out just how much cash Linda brings in from her clients.
And that, children, was the ticking time bomb that would inevitably have exploded if the senator had sought the White House — and is the bottom-line reason he chose not to run.
Before 9/11, Senator Daschle pushed through the sleazy deal in the backrooms of Capitol Hill that forced the FAA to buy defective baggage scanners from one of Linda’s other clients, L-3 International (from which Linda’s firm raked in $440,000 in the ’97–’01 period).
Under a provision Linda’s husband had slipped into the 2000 budget for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the FAA was required to buy one of L-3’s scanners for every one it purchased from the company’s competitors. The L-3 scanners were found to be substandard by DOT’s inspector general; FAA tests of the scanners showed high failure rates; and most have not yet been installed because of their defects (the one at the Dallas–Fort Worth airport — another of Linda’s clients — leaked radiation), which is a major reason DOT says it won’t be able to screen all luggage for explosives for years to come.
In one of those corporate-coddling moves for which the Clinton administration became infamous, President Bubba 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. Example: While running the FAA, she awarded Loral Space Technologies (a major Democratic contributor that figured in the ’96 campaign-finance scandals) a nearly $1 billion contract from the federal government; after Linda passed through the revolving door to Baker, Donelson, Loral paid the lobby shop $740,000 in 2000-2001 for Linda’s services. When the FAA was pondering making mandatory a criminal-background check for all airport employees, Linda, who was then running the agency, vigorously opposed this common-sense move — echoing the position of the airline-industry lobby that had previously employed her.
A particularly odiferous episode involved charges that the senator and his wife had tried to sabotage safety inspections of an air-charter firm owned by Murl Bellew, a Daschle family friend who taught Tom how to fly. The scandal erupted and triggered an official investigation when a Bellew small plane chartered by the Indian Health Service crashed in North Dakota, killing the pilot and three doctors en route to an Indian-reservation clinic.
Forest Service inspectors had been arguing that Bellew’s firm should be banned from getting government contracts because the operation had been unsafe for years. Senator Daschle obligingly pushed legislation taking the Forest Service out of the business of inspecting small-plane carriers, and senior FAA bureaucrats said Linda had also tried to submarine a proposal to train Forest Service inspectors to conduct FAA investigations.
An FAA inspector reported a cover-up: Documents showing the Daschles’ assiduous efforts to minimize inspections of Bellew’s planes were shredded by FAA officials under Linda’s thumb. While an I.G. report failed to find Linda guilty of any lawbreaking, there’s an old saying in Washington: The scandal isn’t what’s illegal, the real scandal is what’s legal.
A link would be nice.
Old story.
At a May 14 press briefing, Daschle told a reporter it would be "a very serious ethical violation" if the Republican Party used a White House photographer or governement property in offering contributors a photo of President Bush taken on September 11. Immediately after Daschle gave this answer, Human Events Assistant Editor David Freddoso asked him if it was a conflict of interest for his wife to lobby for major government contractors and whether he would release the joint tax return he and his wife file detailing the income she receives from that lobbying. Below is the transcript of the exchange:
Reporter: Sir, do you think it's appropriate that Republicans are selling photographs of President Bush fielding calls on September 11 in - as a fundraising technique?
Daschle: Well, I don't have all the information yet. As you know this story just broke this morning. But I think that, clearly, there would be a very serious ethical violation were White House photographers or any government involved in this affair. We'll have to get more information before we comment more publicly on that.
HUMAN EVENTS: Sir, Sen. McCain has criticized a proposal for the Air Force to lease Boeing 767's. Isn't it a conflict of interest for Mrs. Daschle, the wife of the man who sets up every vote in the Senate, to lobby for major government contractors like Boeing?
Daschle: Well, my wife doesn't lobby in the Senate at all. So--she has limited her activities to the House, and I think that's appropriate.
HUMAN EVENTS: Senator, did you and your wife file a joint tax return this year? And if so, will you release it?
Daschle: Yes, we did. We always do.
HUMAN EVENTS: Would you release it, sir?
Daschle: No, we don't
HUMAN EVENTS: Will you?
Daschle: No.
HUMAN EVENTS: Thank you.
Please ping your lists to this thread. We need to get the word out about Daschle.
_________________________________________
RANDALL BECK - ARGUS LEADER (Circa 2/03)
The Blairification of the news continues.
The fact that David Kranz failed to reveal his ties to Sen Daschle is another way the news is skewed without readers' knowledge or consent. The Argus Leader should remember that your job is to give readers the facts, not propaganda, and misleading information.
The purpose of a free press is to inform -- not educate -- so that readers can make up their own minds on issues.
Kranz's most egregious Blarification was not reporting the Republican response to the Pfeiffer/Daschle canard that background information on Miguel Estrada was not forthcoming and was being "concealed." (Please see Addendum below)
The "background information" Daschle requested is confidential Department of Justice memoranda in which Estrada provided appeal, certiorari, and amicus recommendations while he was a career attorney in the Office of Solicitor General.
All living former Solicitors General (four Democrats and three Republicans) have strongly opposed Daschle's request for Solicitor General memoranda and stated that it would sacrifice and compromise the ability of the Justice Department to effectively represent the United States in court.
It would be akin to a lawyer violating the attorney-client privilege by revealing confidential information, which is the unforgivable sin in the legal world.
Also, according to the White House, the Senate has not requested memos such as these for any of the 67 appeals court nominees since 1977 who had previously worked in the Justice Department (including the seven nominees who had previously worked in the Solicitor General's office). Of course, Dave Kranz fails to report these pesky facts, and lets Pfeiffer get away with a throw-away quote. And it's not as if Dave Kranz is unaware of the Republican response.
Since Kranz knows and reports about the letter sent to the White House by Senator Leahy, he knows about and fails to report White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales' letter in response.
Why did Dave Kranz omit this important part of the story? Is he just a bad reporter who simply cannot round up all of the relevant facts? That may be part of it, but mainly, the problem is that it's devastating to Daschle's case, and in Kranz's world, that is something that cannot be allowed to happen. Readers be damned.
ADDENDUM Friday, February 21, 2003
The Sioux Falls protest against Tom Daschle's filibuster of the Estrada nomination gets a write-up in today's Argus Leader by Democratic-coddler David Kranz. Dan Pfeiffer, a Daschle staffer, says there's "more to the story" and, in true communications director form proceeds to subtract from clarity: "[Miguel Estrada] has failed to provide the Senate with basic pieces of information. If Mr. Estrada would do that, Sen. Daschle would be glad to schedule a vote." The White House also is party to concealing requested information, he said. "No one would consider hiring someone for a job without an interview, and that is essentially what the White House is asking," Pfeiffer said.
"..A link would be nice."
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=41264
Looks like it may be time for another trade in.
bleah! they deserve each other.
Well this is another example of CBS, CNN, NBC, and ABC, whos parent companies own about 65% of the U.S. Media outlets and local affilliate news outlets, hide the news.
Especially when it is a Progressive democrat, or other commie-anti American cause.
Ops4 God BLess America!
ping
BUMP
They should just put this on Thune for Senate Letterhead, and mail it to evey person in South Dakota.
Imagine the moral outrage at CBS if Daschle were (R-SD) instead of (D-SD)!
FReep the Argus Leader: on the recipient pull-down menu, select news tip. Demand the info on this thread be published.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:XKZNr2du6jIJ:www.argusleader.com/contact/
FReep the Argus Leader: on the recipient pull-down menu, select news tip. Demand the info on this thread be published.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:XKZNr2du6jIJ:www.argusleader.com/contact/
"They should just put this on Thune for Senate Letterhead, and mail it to evey person in South Dakota."
Do you think is might be better if a "527" independent group did the mailing?
Nope. If a 527 does it, Thune has deniability. No reason for that.
Push Daschle over the edge, and then Make him defend EVERY VOTE hes ever made on EVERY BILL in which his wife had a vested Interest.
Make him look Corrupt, and Contemptable.Then in the Last 2 weeks, just Ridicule him at every turn...Find ways to trun every issue into an Airline connection.
Linda also has another accomplishment--gaining an unprecedented patent extension for a popular prescription allergy medication--Claritin. Consumers could have been benefiting for years from generic knock-offs costing a fraction of the dollar a tablet Claritin save for Linda's efforts..
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