Distractions

Barack Obama has been president for less than a month, but I think he already has his first Medal of Freedom recipients:

Nancy Killefer and Tom Daschle.

Why, you may ask? Well, gee whiz, it’s because of their incredible selflessness.

Killefer withdrew her nomination to be the first chief performance officer for the federal government because she had “come to realize in the current environment that my personal tax issue of D.C. unemployment tax could be used to create exactly the kind of distraction and delay” that could undermine the new administration.

Ditto for Daschle.

He too bailed out as secretary of Health and Human Services because he didn’t want to “be a distraction” from the new president’s drive for health care reform.

Did you catch that, taxpayers? They were willing to fall on their swords because they didn’t want to become a distraction for the new president — not because they were exposed as tax deadbeats and hypocrites.

What noble public servants. I am too choked up to continue. After my sobs have subsided, I intend to write a letter to the president asking him to name a mountain in their honor or declare their birthdays national holidays.

If I don’t get distracted.