Obama's Ethical Performance Breakdown

What does a "chief performance officer" do? Well, according to the Washington Post's analysis of the new position created by the Barack Obama presidential transition, one of the responsibilities is governmental transparency and accessibility:

Releasing information publicly will help engage the general public in the work of government, as well as allowing measurement experts in academia and business to parse data and offer ideas to improve federal management. Transparency also creates an incentive for agencies to do a better job of collecting and using data.

The Post's essay is dated January 7, 2009, and the article specifically mentions by name Nancy Killefer, President Obama's nominee for the position.

So today's news that Ms. Killefer has withdrawn from consideration as the chief performance nominee ought to really tell us something about both the competence and integrity of the new boss in Washington and the Democratic "values" that have taken over the town.

Was Ms. Killefer taking the appointment seriously when the transparency of her very own credibility was at stake, her credibility as the administration's top officer charged with governmental transparency? Did it take the media's amazing snap from its Obamessianic slumber - with the growing attention in the press this last week to the slew of ethical fiascos among a host of Obama appointees - for her to see the light?

It seems not too long ago that the Democratic congressional majority was championing a new ethics of responsibility in Washington, and throughout campaign 2008 the online left routinely scourged the GOP for its corruption, starting with Vice President Dick Cheney on down to the lowest congressional backbencher. But now where is the left on what's emerging to be a banana republic's version of governmental propriety?

Tim Geithner got a pass at Treasury, but his chief of staff's a long-time lobbyist doing deals inside the Beltway. So much for those lobbying standards President Obama established when he announced a new day on the Potomac? Maybe the Geithner Treasury's ethical end-run was a bit much, as it now seems that Thomas Daschle's bid for health secretary is sailing into some stormy waters. With the New York Times editorial board calling for Daschle's name to be withdrawn, it's pretty obvious that the bloom is off the roses along the corridors of power of the new Democratic era.

Actually, it's breaking that Daschle's now withdrawing himself (and I wasn't going to bet on it), so perhaps folks on the left are noting the clarity of hypocrisy that's now finally coming into focus just a couple weeks after our national holiday from reason that was the Obama presidential inauguration.

George Packer, at the New Yorker, is warning that President Obama "can’t afford hypocrisy." But that's a bit like saying Kurt Warner can't afford to throw an interception. What's done is done now, and the country's already living with a reign of impropriety, and the train's barely left the station. There's no second chance for Warner's Hall of Fame bid, and we're barely into the first 100 days and Obama will be lucky to win a second term the way the Democratic scandals are already rocking the administration.

No worry for the online fever swamps of the left, naturally. They'll just give the finger to anyone who's got the temerity to point out the hypocrisy of the president, his campaign, and his party. Meanwhile, that much touted "transparency and accessibility" is going down the memory hole faster than you can say Zoë Baird.