President Obama hit the right note in his round of mea culpa TV interviews on Tom Daschle's collapsed nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services. "I screwed up," Obama told CNN's Anderson Cooper. "I don't want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards--one for powerful people, and one for ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes."

Unfortunately, that is exactly the message that has been emanating from the Administration. First it was Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who, like Daschle, described his failure to pay tens of thousands of dollars in taxes as a "mistake." Then came Daschle's $128,000 unpaid tax bill for a free car and driver, along with Nancy Killefer, who, before her unpaid nanny taxes came out, was all set to "restore the American people's confidence in their government" as chief White House performance officer, by rooting out wasteful spending. Oops.

Nannygate stories are old hat in Washington. But there is something bigger going on here. Obama campaigned on "change," and promised to keep lobbyists out of government. He deserves to be held accountable. At a moment when Americans are being asked to pony up hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the lavish spenders on Wall Street, the relationship between the powerful and ordinary folks who pay taxes could not be more strained. By dumping our tax dollars into the bank bailout, by installing bailout architect Geithner as the head of Treasury, and by making an exception to the "no lobbying" rule for former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson, Geithner's chief of staff, the new Administration has strained credulity about its promises of "reform."

It looks like the powerful are still writing the rules. And when they screw up, they don't have to pay the consequences.

The Daschle debacle is the straw that broke the camel's back.

More than his free car, Daschle's millions in income from health care industry groups violate the spirit of Obama's promises of change.

"Among the health care interest groups paying Daschle for speeches were America's Health Insurance Plans, $40,000 for two speeches, CSL Behring, $30,000, the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, $16,000, and the Principal Life Insurance Co., $15,000." the A.P. reported..

And here is a bit of interesting news from Bloomberg's Jason Kelly in a piece headlined "Daschle's Demise Linked to Hindery's Private Equity Lifestyle". It turns out that the free car and driver Daschle enjoyed came from Leo Hindery Jr, who hired Daschle for his buyout firm, InterMedia Advisors LLC. For a million dollars a year, plus perks, Daschle advised the company on entertainment and media investments. Daschle, like a lot of his colleagues who left Capitol Hill looking for big paychecks, went into the private equity industry to make millions trading on his name and political connections.

"InterMedia and the 61-year-old Hindery’s role in the Daschle controversy underline the increasingly frequent intersections among private equity, politicians and policy makers," Kelly reports.

The private equity racket has a particularly unsavory taint in the current economy, which is suffering a hangover from the leveraged buyout boom. Getting rich quick by moving money around, cheating on your taxes, and cashing in on policy expertise by marketing yourself to industry groups are not examples of leadership change Americans are looking for from Washington.

What we need are what used to be called public servants. You know, people who can scrape by on six figure incomes, who don't have their heads turned by the promise of a quick million, a cheap nanny, or a free car. And who are more interested in building a better society than cashing in, personally, on a casino economy at the expense of us chumps who pay their salaries.