Baucus-Hanes links...

by: Jay Stevens

Tue Dec 08, 2009 at 12:09:24 PM MST

Some links...and these are just a handful of opinions of what's out there:

Mike Dennison's report looks into the possible fall-out of the nomination. Most interviewed for the article agree Baucus is not likely to face any punishment from either the Senate Ethics Committee or Montana voters.

Charles Johnson examines Baucus' decision to hide his relationship with Hanes to Jon Tester and lawyer, who was vetting his nominations. Baucus: "This was done purposefully...I didn't want to bias either one of them."

Newsweek's Kate Dailey reminds people that Melodee Hanes was actually qualified for the job and doesn't think her relationship with Baucus should trump her accomplishments:

Look, I'm all for ethical standards, and obviously this raises many eyebrows. But it also reveals a nasty habit of denying the intellect, experience, or merit belonging to the sexual partner of someone in power. There seems to be the impression that Hanes is a piece of ass totally unqualified for the position, and that Baucus nominated her in lieu of shelling out for concert tickets or a tennis bracelet. The phrase "staff-member girlfriend" makes it sound like she earned her taxpayer-funded paycheck by providing back rubs and listening to Baucus talk about his day.

In fact, "girlfriend" is not Hanes's primary identity. (Nor, anymore, is "staff member"; she resigned from her job as state director as the relationship became more serious.) As Baucus's office points out, she's an expert on child-abuse prosecution, and has tried more than 100 jury trials. Want to find out more? Good luck. Googling "Melodee Hanes" turns up mostly link bait and pilfered photos-the same treatment given to the women who claim to have slept with Tiger Woods.

Ed Morrisey is ripped that Baucus took Hanes - his "state director" - on taxpayer-funded overseas "junkets."

Matthew Brown notes that Melodee Hanes wanted, and was working towards, the US attorney's job long before she met Max Baucus.

The New York Times' Charlie Savage highlights, not Baucus' specific transgression, but the whole system of patronage behind the nomination of US Attorneys, the most egregious example of which isn't Hanes - who's at least qualified for the job - but the appointment as US attorney of South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson's son, Brendan, who's 34. The money quote:

Ms. [Melanie] Sloan, the ethics group [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics] director, said that the attention now being given to Mr. Baucus's initial support for Ms. Hanes was disproportionate, given her extensive prosecutorial experience, and the fact that she did not receive the nomination.

"Why is this woman becoming front-page news when Tim Johnson's son didn't?" Ms. Sloan said. "The answer is clearly sex."

Politico's Manu Raju goes even further, noting that such kinds of appointments are all too typical in Washington DC's "clubby" atmosphere. It's common for spouses of Senators to work in administration jobs. Senator John Kerry: "Was it a conflict of interest for Liddy Dole to [work as a Cabinet secretary in two Republican administrations] when Bob Dole was in the Senate? Please, c'mon. You don't think he recommended her?" Raju thinks Baucus will have no trouble from the Senate Ethics Committee.

Raju: "What makes the Baucus case unusual is that Hanes was neither his wife nor just another staffer. Baucus was in a romantic relationship with Hanes - and was still married to his wife - when he submitted Hanes's name, along with two others, for the White House to consider for the U.S. attorney position."

Ruth Marcus: "No harm, no foul, maybe, but another illustration of how public officials can be perfectly obtuse to the perfectly obvious. Then again, Baucus benefits from his enemies: Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele went, as usual, way too far, asserting that Baucus 'used his Senate office to advance a taxpayer-funded appointment for his staff-member girlfriend' and demanding a Senate Ethics Committee investigation into 'why Senator Baucus put his personal needs above those of the people of Montana.'

"Unfair -- and also just what Baucus should have expected from such a boneheaded move."

Marc Ambinder:

The White House and Baucus's colleagues are no doubt furious with the senator, and they are also probably sympathetic to someone who has worked so hard and by most accounts been a credible representative of his state's values and interests. So far as health care goes, it's a distraction. And Democrats don't need distractions. They need Baucus to be a spokesperson for his bill. Now, they're going to have to figure out a way around his self-created image crisis.

It's always hard to predict where these scandal waves will end up. It certainly does not help the Democrats make a case that Republicans have ethical issues; it may help build onto a case that Republicans are making about Democrats (although John Ensign and David Vitter tear down that case in the Senate). It may make Mr. Baucus vulnerable to a Democratic challenger the next time he runs for office in 2014. And it will almost certainly precipitate an internal investigation by the Senate.