Althouse: Woodward's ominous and vague prediction of scandal: "I say it's not over."

January 26, 2009

Woodward's ominous and vague prediction of scandal: "I say it's not over."

He's referring specifically/unspecifically to "the nanny or household tax problems and so forth" in the Obama administration:

41 comments:

ricpic said...: It ain't over till Oprah sings.; 1/26/09, 4:45 PM
Beth said...: He talked to the nanny on her deathbed. Or maybe it was a seance with the nanny's ghost.; 1/26/09, 4:48 PM
Beth said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 1/26/09, 4:48 PM
Pete the Streak said...: Matthews looked like he lost his tingle when those three words were uttered: "it's not over".; 1/26/09, 4:50 PM
traditionalguy said...: Gee willikers Bat Man, there is a Bat signal over the WAPO building. Could it be true that the media will divulge what it knows again just like it used to do? Stay tuned America.; 1/26/09, 4:53 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: If only I had 40 years experience in the MSM, then I could make these kind of predictions too.

Beth: nanny & deathbed. Good One!; 1/26/09, 5:06 PM
Wince said...: These kinds of scandals that pertain to personnel are not an existential threat to Obama.

Moreover, to the extent that they have the effect of forestalling or derailing some of the more liberal elements of his agenda, the better it probably is for his administration in the long-run.

That's the irony of Rush's "hope that Obama fails."

If the Clinton administration is viewed as being successful, it's because many of its early liberal initiatives were dropped due to such derailments, being replaced by more centrist alternatives.; 1/26/09, 5:07 PM
Revenant said...: It takes a bold man to predict, with 99.5% of an administration's first term remaining, that scandals relating to that administration's staffers aren't over yet.

Being the courageous (if anonymous) commentator that I am, I'll go one further and predict that this administration's tough political battles aren't over with yet either.; 1/26/09, 5:14 PM
JohnAnnArbor said...: Wasn't there something about a woman in Martinique at one point?; 1/26/09, 5:14 PM
Palladian said...: Man that Bob Woodward is still as sharp as ever, ain't he?; 1/26/09, 5:19 PM
Balfegor said...: These nanny and tax scandals seem so passe these days. I mean, we've had an Obama nominee knocked out of contention already for fear he's about to get indicted for pay-for-pay corruption. Nannies and tax just don't have the same zing as a grand jury investigation.; 1/26/09, 5:29 PM
Big Mike said...: Filling out the forms and paying the employee tax you have to pay when you get a nanny is a huge headache. My wife and I know, since we were careful to do so a quarter century or so ago when she went back to work after our first child.

I guess the point of having the tax laws on the books is for Republicans to pay the taxes but Democrats, especially liberal Democrats, and doubly especially Kennedys don't have to bother.

I think I might change my party affiliation.; 1/26/09, 5:32 PM
George M. Spencer said...: If you can be a Treasury secretary and not pay taxes, why should a nanny problem stop anyone's career.

How 1990s. The problems facing our nation today are too grave, too urgent to sidetrack solutions. Yes, this top official may have erred, but he (or she) has learned from her or his mistake. All the back wages and taxes have been paid. The appropriate palms have been greased and smoothly with an all-natural emolument. It was an innocent oversight. Now, please, let us now move on with the pressing business before this great nation of ours. Let us put behind ourselves this childish partisan rancor.; 1/26/09, 5:40 PM
Matt Eckert said...: Hey if that Fran Drescher bitch really wins the Senate Race in New York and then get's in trouble, would that be a "nanny Scandal" per se or de jure.

I don't understand that legal mumbo jumbo.; 1/26/09, 5:40 PM
Joe said...: I happen to agree that this kind of rumor mongering isn't journalism, but I'm bemused by the hypocrisy of suddenly discovering this.; 1/26/09, 6:07 PM
Revenant said...: How 1990s. The problems facing our nation today are too grave, too urgent to sidetrack solutions

The notion that the success of the Republic isn't dependent on whether any one particular man holds power is also, it would appear, a "1990s" thing.

The Current Crisis is, naturally, simply Too Important for us to worry about whether or not the Great Men Who Will Save Us All can be bothered to obey the laws they inflict on ordinary, non-Great people like you and I.

Enlightened minds know that men of superior breeding can be forgiven a little faux pas like repeatedly and deliberately flaunting the law they're to be charged with enforcing. The important thing is that we'll finally be ruled by someone superior to ourselves, rather than some law-abiding peasant such as one might find in a lesser democracy.

It was an innocent oversight.

The oversight was that he didn't realize he'd be in the national spotlight a few years later. The bit about not paying his taxes was quite obviously deliberate.; 1/26/09, 6:17 PM
Fred Drinkwater said...: I've said this before, but since the memory is seared, seared into my brain:
One year I filed 19 returns.
- My wife and I (3)
- My 2 kids (4) (because they had just a bit more dividend income than allowed to file on my return.)
- My nanny (12) (Fed and State, quarterly, plus unemployment and a couple others I don't recall. Plus the joy of several visits each to the local IRS, CA Franchise Tax Board, and CA Employment Development Division offices.)

I put up with it because the lady was a Tienanmen Square refugee and we were trying to help her get a green card. No joy, though.

I have nothing but sympathy for anyone who tries to avoid that hassle.; 1/26/09, 6:21 PM
john said...: EDH -

Didn't we bounce Zoe Baird and end up with Janet Reno?

On looks alone, BFM.; 1/26/09, 6:30 PM
Sprezzatura said...: Speaking of CA and taxes; they are ruthless. At least they were years ago when I was lower on the totem pole, where I dealt w/ making loans.

I personally know of more than a half dozen situations where CA made tax and fee claims against folks that showed up on their credit reports. And, I wasn't lending in CA!

Every single time it was easily proven that these folks were being improperly assessed for taxes and fees by CA (state or cities.) This only happened w/ CA, even though I worked w/ folks that had previously lived in many states, and all around the world.

I always joked that CA was trying to raise money by charging folks fees for leaving the state.; 1/26/09, 6:48 PM
Revenant said...: I always joked that CA was trying to raise money by charging folks fees for leaving the state.

If they did, we probably wouldn't have a deficit right now. Americans are moving away from here at an alarming rate.

If we weren't ass-deep in illegal immigrants, the state's population would be shrinking.; 1/26/09, 6:53 PM
Laura(southernxyl) said...: I think somebody wants to write another book.; 1/26/09, 7:01 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Rev said:

"Americans are moving away from here at an alarming rate"

LOL at how precise the start of your statement had to be.; 1/26/09, 7:09 PM
Host with the Most said...: I love the hypocrisy of Chris Matthews exposed in the article.; 1/26/09, 7:22 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: It is no surpise that 1jpb saw the onerous CA tax burden up close and personal years ago but was not alarmed.; 1/26/09, 7:24 PM
Simon said...: Justice Stewart could not be reached for comment.; 1/26/09, 7:49 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: At the start of a new year once one of William Safire's predictions was that "They'll be a big flood somewhere, maybe two."

Woodward is apparently following in Safire's footsteps.

Only Safire was joking.

Remember: Woodward and Bernstein didn't break the Watergate story. It was the FBI and Sirica who gave the info to them.; 1/26/09, 8:39 PM
Big Mike said...: @Drinkwater, having gone through it for our nanny (ours also was a refuge, from a Caribbean nation) I also have sympathy for someone who would like to avoid that hassle.

But the law is what the law is, and I have no sympathy for someone who actually avoids paying their legally-mandated taxes.; 1/26/09, 9:41 PM
TosaGuy said...: The left will throw Woodward under the bus if he touches Obama.; 1/26/09, 9:44 PM
Sprezzatura said...: It is no surpise that 1jpb saw the onerous CA tax burden up close and personal years ago but was not alarmed.

Actually, you may have been proud of me. I was relentless in my counter attacks on CA for my customers. Even when it didn't matter I spent all sorts of time (and the bank's money) to get CA to capitulate. The principle matters!; 1/26/09, 10:08 PM
Sprezzatura said...: Didn't matter for my loans, I should note.; 1/26/09, 10:09 PM
Patrick said...: He was spitting out dead CIA agent pubic hair while making that comment, right?

Jeezus H. Baby-on-a-spit Christ! That he should be believable after his psychic interviews with Casey.

Y'all deserve the Obamaclypse, y'hear?; 1/26/09, 11:21 PM
bobby said...: "The problems facing our nation today are too grave, too urgent to sidetrack solutions."
- - - -

The problems facing our nation today arose, by and large, because we ceded control in the past to too many people for whom the difference between "right" and "wrong" has more to do with the statistical probability of being caught than with a sense of personal honor.

An honorable guy doesn't "forget" to pay federal income tax on his income for - what? - six years? - and then, when two of the years are discovered, pay only those two years worth of past-due taxes while waiting to see who notices the other four years, until the guy picking you to run - to be the executive officer of - to be the driving, motivating soul of - the Internal Revenue Service ! - says "eh, by the way, you pay your taxes, right?"

I do a fair share of my legal work in Chicago. You have to work on projects there to get a sense of how Soprano-like it really truly is. So, to Obama, this tax thing is just sliding right past him - NOBODY would think twice about such a thing back home, it's not even worth comment.

But he's wrong.; 1/26/09, 11:21 PM
vbspurs said...: You know what is a scandal?

That President Obama's first sit-down interview after becoming president is with Al-Arabiya.

Ugh.

Cheers,
Victoria; 1/26/09, 11:24 PM
Beth said...: If we weren't ass-deep in illegal immigrants, the state's population would be shrinking.

I have a friend in LA (Hollywood) who's as left-coast liberal as it gets, and she's been saying this same thing for as long as I've known her, 10 years or more.; 1/26/09, 11:38 PM
Dave S. said...: "Americans are moving away from [California] at an alarming rate."

But they seem to be taking their voting patterns with them. Same as Massholes moving to New Hampshire. It's bafflingly stupid.; 1/27/09, 12:55 AM
Anonymous said...: Woodward looks a little forlorn now that the Bushitler is gone. I guess he's secret-addicted.; 1/27/09, 1:07 AM
OSweet said...: Are his sources correct?; 1/27/09, 1:55 AM
Peter said...: What a genius Woodward is. The only Democrat smart enough to fix the economy is a tax cheat. Rezko is cooperating with prosecuters, half of his campaign has paper from the Blago investigation and genius Woodward thinks there is more coming. Ya think?

I remember the Democrats of my youth, the Party of segregation. That was replaced, it's now a continuing criminal enterprise.; 1/27/09, 2:13 AM
Anonymous said...: ""Americans are moving away from [California] at an alarming rate."

But they seem to be taking their voting patterns with them. Same as Massholes moving to New Hampshire. It's bafflingly stupid."

I've been wondering about this too.
CA residents flee to the Pacific Northwest, AZ, or NM and vote for the same kind of policies and politicians that caused them to abandon CA.
If someone could explain, I'd appreciate it.; 1/27/09, 6:33 AM
EnigmatiCore said...: "If someone could explain, I'd appreciate it"

They would have gotten away with it, if not for those meddling kids.; 1/27/09, 7:35 AM
Revenant said...: CA residents flee to the Pacific Northwest, AZ, or NM and vote for the same kind of policies and politicians that caused them to abandon CA.

The answer is simply that most people don't understand cause and effect. All they know is that their old neighborhood had high crime, bad schools and expensive housing. They don't comprehend that this is because they voted for people who trust illegal immigrants more than cops, and think that the primary function of a public school system is to provide jobs for teachers and bureaucrats rather than to educate children.; 1/27/09, 3:34 PM