Baucus And His Women

by digby

The last thing I want to think about before I’ve had my coffee is Max Baucus’s sex life, but I had no choice since the scandal de jour seems to be that he stepped out on his wife with an also married staffer and then nominated that staffer for US Attorney (and later withdrew the nomination.)Now they are both divorced and live together. Whatever. I really don’t care who these people sleep with and they seem to have thought better of the US Attorney business. He’s a cad. She is too. I’m shocked, simply shocked.

But as Marcy Wheeler points out, he has indulged in another indiscretion which actually does bother me and affect all of us — and nobody gives a damn about that:

[W]hile we’re getting all scandalized about Baucus’s bad judgment, let’s talk about the bad judgment that did hurt taxpayers, rather than the one that almost did: the way in which the revolving door on his committee staff made it very easy for the insurance industry to write the Senate’s health care reform bill. I’m much more offended–and directly affected–by the fact that former Wellpoint VP Liz Fowler wrote the Senate health care bill than I am that Baucus nominated, then withdrew, his mistress for a plum job.

No kidding. I don’t care who he screws in his personal life, but the screwing of the American people is seriously offensive. Unfortunately, the second won’t get any notice at all and the first will become a scandal that could lead to political trouble. And I think that says it all about what’s wrong with our political system.

.