President Barack Obama took full responsiblity for the latest embarrassment to his new and still forming administration. He told CNN's Anderson Cooper last night that though he thinks Tom Daschle was the man for the job, ignoring the former senator's tax mistakes would send the wrong message to Americans.
Politico has a whole list of Plan Bs (not that Obama had a Health and Human Services secretary Plan B). But the good president is right: none seem quite the perfect fit that Daschle was (except for that damn tax thing ... is it really so hard?) In case you're out of the loop, Daschle surprised everybody by withdrawing his nomination for the top HHS job yesterday.
Sending the right message to many Americans, Obama set a salary cap for executives of the banks and companies getting bailed out by taxpayers. Sure, you hear that there are loopholes galore. But there shouldn't be. The cap is set at $500,000 a year. Come on, people, live with it!
Be careful what you reveal in your 25 Random Things About Me note on Facebook. MySpace deleted some 90,000 known sex offenders' accounts and word on the virtual street is that they're all moving over to Facebook. Of course the entity putting that word on the street is the company that was hired to clear MySpace of the perverts. Still. Maybe it's also time to change your Flickr settings to friends and family only.
Here's an uplifting-yet-makes-you-hate-the-world story: the world's youngest divorcee through a snowball and did other childish things in Paris last week. The 10-year-old (!) Yemeni managed an escape from her husband (who is three times her age) and found a judge who granted her the divorce almost immediately. She's now back in school and getting to be a girl. Not sure why the Time interviewer took her to a dimly lit bar in Paris to do the interview. The first line kind of creeps us out.
Have you ever thought about why organ recipients might reject a transplanted kidney, but pregnant women's bodies don't reject a fetus (which is not genetically identical to the mother)? Us either, but it's a great question! And researchers may have found a reason. Maternal cells seep into the fetus at a very young age, boosting the baby's regulatory T cells, which in turn tell mom's body to not reject the baby. Kinda sweet.
The latest in octuplets news: their mom has filed two worker's compensation claims in the past -- one in 1999 and another in 2001. What does this tell us? Not sure. But since her oldest child is 7, at least one of the claims was filed before she had been pregnant with him.
The publicist for Elizabeth Edwards's forthcoming book, Resilience, tells us that the wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards will make reference to her husband's affair and the woman who says he is her daughter's father. The book comes out in May.
Let's leave on a high note: Obama will sign into legislation this very minute an SCHIP bill, which will extend healthcare benefits to low- and moderate-income worker's children. Now, lawmakers of yore, was that really so hard?
Video: CNN
