What's A Poor Boy To Do?

When he's gotten used to all those Senatorial perqs? Tom Daschle had to go to WORK!

Sort of...Harper's Ken Silverstein quotes Emily Joffe on the myriad ways (former Senate Majority Leader) Tom Daschle had to shuffle to just to keep his feet off the pavement:

Like many Americans whose steady, reliable job has suddenly disappeared, Thomas Daschle cobbled together a bunch of gigs when he was laid off in 2004 by the people of South Dakota after more than two decades of representing them in Congress.

You'll be glad to know Tom's friends helped pull him through. Splendidly!

Friends, that is, in the industries he'd be charged with overseeing and regulation.

Bit of course, that wouldn't have ANY effect on someone as honest as Daschle, would it?

There was the day job at the law firm Alston & Bird that must have been blessedly free of the kind of dull legal minutiae that make up many a billable hour, since Daschle is not a lawyer. That paid $2.1 million over the past two years. The consulting position at InterMedia Advisors, a private equity firm, paid him $1 million a year. A senior partner there told The Post that Daschle did “a lot of helpful work,” which he declined to enumerate. A stream of speeches to businesses that had business with the government earned Daschle $500,000 during the past two years. There were directorships on several boards — BP Corp. alone paid him $250,000… (BP? British Petroleum...Emphases added. Ed.)

“He’s the gold standard for integrity in government,” said a former aide to Daschle, Andrea LaRue, herself now a lobbyist. (Lobbyists vouching for a Lobbyist? Who said irony was dead? Ed.) In recent months, as the economy has melted down, we have all learned about the art of monetization — of turning things such as bad home equity loans into arcane derivatives and how there’s lots of money to be made out of monetization (until sometimes the money disappears). Even if we don’t know what Daschle did to earn all his money, we do know that when you monetize the job of Senate majority leader, as Daschle’s financial disclosure forms reveal, you come up with almost $5.3 million in two years. Gold standard, indeed.

And according to NPR just now, more than $200K were generously donated by interests in health insurance and big Pharma. Who could ever have anticipated...

You could be forgiven for asking exactly what former Senator Daschle did for that kind of money.

I know what I'd do...