Patterico's Pontifications

1/8/2009

Tom Daschle Discusses Health Care With Congress; Convinces NY Times Reporter

Filed under: Media Bias, Obama, Politics — DRJ @ 9:39 pm

[Guest post by DRJ]

Tom Daschle, Obama’s Secretary-designate of Health and Human Services, addressed the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in Washington today in what the New York Times describes as the first of two steps in his confirmation hearing process. Daschle is scheduled to appear next week before the Finance Committee for hearings and a vote. (Did George W. Bush’s appointees get pre-Inauguration hearings on confirmation? I don’t recall but I doubt it.)

New York Times reporter Robert Pear apparently liked what he heard:

“Having represented South Dakota in the House for 8 years and in the Senate for 18, Mr. Daschle understands the ways of Washington. He graciously answered questions from senators, echoed their concerns and fluently discussed fine points of health policy without consulting notes or briefing books.”

This sounds more like a movie review than a report on a Senate committee hearing. At this rate, the New York Times will describe Daschle as walking on water at the Finance Committee hearing.

– DRJ

13 Comments

  1. I think Robert Pear is getting a tingle up his leg! Young love, isn’t it grand?

    Comment by Patricia — 1/8/2009 @ 9:51 pm

  2. He graciously answered questions from senators, echoed their concerns. . .

    I wonder which concerns those were: “Gee, Lucy Jones from my home state had to choose between buying groceries or paying for the operation to have her husband’s foot extracted from the butt of their layabout 19-year-old son the drug dealer,” or “Gee, I hope we don’t end up with nine month waiting lists to see a cardiologist about your chest pains and labored breathing like they have in Canada and Britain.”

    Comment by JVW — 1/8/2009 @ 10:06 pm

  3. While the NYT develops a crush on this new Obama appointee, Howard Dean is feeling a bit jilted. Apparently he had his eye on the Secretary of Health & Human Services post and was snubbed.

    btw, if Daschle walked on water, it would be usurping The One’s position and that simply isn’t permitted.

    Comment by Dana — 1/8/2009 @ 10:16 pm

  4. The use of adverbs denotes editorializing, not reporting.

    Comment by Icy Texan — 1/8/2009 @ 10:25 pm

  5. I am sickened more by the PrObama bias than by their 8 years of venom to GWB (and side attacks on our military). From hostility to panting slaving over the powers-that-be with just the flip of and R to a D. “R legs baaaad, D legs good!”

    Like we are in a 1984-ish Media Thought-Control complex – They should change their name to the Manhattan Pravda.

    Comment by Travis Monitor — 1/8/2009 @ 10:51 pm

  6. …echoed their concerns and fluently discussed fine points of health policy without consulting notes or briefing books.

    Translation: He dazzled the nitwits with BS and a shiny nickel.

    Comment by Perfect Sense — 1/9/2009 @ 1:58 am

  7. These are people who think Biden’s intelligent and well-spoken.

    Comment by Rob Crawford — 1/9/2009 @ 6:42 am

  8. Walking on water is reserved for The Precious.

    Comment by Bradley J. Fikes — 1/9/2009 @ 6:48 am

  9. Did George W. Bush’s appointees get pre-Inauguration hearings on confirmation?

    Didn’t Ashcroft get an extra special ritual evisceration hearing before inauguration? I seem to recall that happening.

    Comment by Dodd — 1/9/2009 @ 6:54 am

  10. Apparently he had his eye on the Secretary of Health & Human Services post and was snubbed.

    And in fact had been sent off to do Party grunt-work in American Samoa

    Comment by Scott Jacobs — 1/9/2009 @ 7:02 am

  11. Walking on water….
    One must remember that light-weight fecal-mater floats;
    Whereas (as my old D.I. patiently explained ad nauseum), whale-s..t ends up on the bottom of the ocean, putting it on a higher level than lowly basic-trainees.

    Comment by AD — 1/9/2009 @ 9:35 am

  12. Isn’t it a felony to give a blow job like this in public?

    Comment by JD — 1/9/2009 @ 11:51 am

  13. Did George W. Bush’s appointees get pre-Inauguration hearings on confirmation? I don’t recall but I doubt it.

    Donald Rumsfeld, Paul O’Neill, Christine Todd Whitman, John Ashcroft and Colin Powell – to name five – underwent or began confirmation hearings before the Bush Inauguration in 2001.

    Daschle welcomed O’Neill:

    SEN. TOM DASCHLE: You are inheriting a remarkably strong fiscal situation…We cannot afford to dig ourselves into a fiscal hole as we did in the 1980s. We can afford to cut taxes. We can afford to provide the opportunities for prescription drug benefits under Medicare. But we all know we must not go too far.

    Comment by steve — 1/9/2009 @ 3:07 pm

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