It hasn't been a good couple of weeks for Tom Daschle, the Senate's minority leader. On Oct. 10, the Washington Post revealed that Daschle had recently taken $ 5,000 donors for a visit to the face of Mount Rushmore an area off-limits to the general public but not to South Dakota senators. Then on Oct. 20, he was asked a question about tax cuts at a Capitol Hill session with reporters. "We have the lowest tax rate of any industrialized country in the world," said the earnest Daschle. "Our view is that we've got to make the tax system more fair. But certainly I don't think that many people are overtaxed."
You could hear the Republican fax machines whirring after that one. First out of the gate was Newt Gingrich's press secretary, Christina Martin, who asserted, "When NASA is done exploring Mars, they might want to send a probe to Planet Daschle." Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee, followed with a mischievous letter calling on his Democratic counterpart, Roy Romer, to repudiate Daschle's comments.
By Oct. 22, Daschle claimed Washington's oldest excuse -- his comments were taken "out of context" and then asserted that "Americans are overtaxed" three times during another session with reporters. Kinsley's Law rings true again: It's only a gaffe when a politician says what he really means.