At least Tom Daschle still has his friends. Hardly had the would-be Health and Human Services secretary exited stage left before his Washington defenders got to work. A former HHS secretary went on TV lauding Daschle as “honorable.” Members of the Senate praised their former colleague as “a great leader” and “a class act.” The president himself showed empathy and forgiveness, describing Daschle’s failure to pay more than $130,000 in federal taxes as an “honest” and “unintentional mistake.”

Really? Had these Daschle stalwarts paid attention to widely available press reports and public information dating back five years, they might have seen how these recent transgressions fit into a larger pattern of behavior. And they would have discovered a sad truth: Be the tax dodges large or small, Thomas Daschle has loved them all.