Sam on What Nominees' Withdrawal Says About Obama

Feb. 3, 2009— -- The following is a commentary by ABC News' Sam Donaldson.

The Daschle nomination has been withdrawn, and the question is, what does it mean? But it's not about Daschle -- he failed to pay his taxes in a timely fashion, and people can decide what they want about that.

No, the question is, what does this say about President Obama and his top advisers?

First, they knew about Gov. Bill Richardson's potential problem in the New Mexico investigation into state contracts, but they nominated him to be commerce secretary anyway. Weeks later, of course, Richardson withdrew.

They knew about Tim Geithner's failure to pay taxes in a timely fashion, but they nominated him to be treasury secretary anyway. He has been confirmed.

They knew about Nancy Killefer's tax problem from 1995, yet they nominated her for a post in the office of management and budget anyway. This morning she withdrew.

And they knew about Daschle's tax problem, but they nominated him for HHS secretary anyway.

The first thing this tells us about the president and his advisers is they either didn't think such problems should be disqualifying, or they thought they could just go ahead and rely on the president's high popularity to override the concerns.

But this situation also says something else about Obama and his advisers: Once they saw the anger rising from millions of people who believe such problems are disqualifying, and wondered how Obama, who had come to office on a pledge of the highest standards for public service, could tolerate them, the president moved shrewdly to reverse course, to cut his losses before people decided the course he was following in these matters was, in some way, disqualifying for him.

And that was smart. Still, political Washington is recalculating its view that the president and his people know what they're doing and are truly different from the type of politician the country has grown to dislike.

Every president stumbles now and then, and so far this one has been more sure-footed than most. Still, the questions about Obama and his advisers are now very much on the table for continued inspection.