Not tonight, Barack. I've got a headache.

Well, the afterglow is certainly wearing off.

Obama's "Health Czar" went down in flames yesterday before he even got his crown. Tom Daschle has withdrawn from consideration for HHS Secretary because he got caught not paying his taxes to the tune of $128K (or five times the average annual income of 30% of the US population). In one day Obama went from "absolutely" still backing Daschle to telling the press corps yesterday, "I screwed up." Treasury Secretay Tim Geithner was allowed to slide on his $34K back taxes, but the fallout also cost Obama another appointee: Nancy Killefer, who withdrew from consideration to be the government's "chief performance officer."

Not to mention the open hypocrisy of the new lobbying rules, that apparently apply to everyone but the president. Sen. John McCain said it best: "I think it’s a bit disingenuous to announce strict rules and then nominate someone with a waiver from the rules that you just announced..." McCain was referring to William Lynn, who Obama has picked to be Deputy Defense Sec and was a powerful defense contractor's lobbyist. Oh yeah, did we also mention that Daschle's wife is a lobbyist and so was he, even though he was not registered? And there's also Treasury's chief of staff Mark Patterson, who was a lobbyist for Goldman Sachs.

And now, it looks like the Presiden't precious stimulus bill is about to crash and burn in the Senate as Democratic leaders are admitting they don't have the votes to pass it. No surprise, it's full of pork. Everyone knows it's full of pork. Even the casual observer can see that $21 million dollars to re-sod the National Mall is not creating jobs. And, while converting the government fleet to "smart cars" is a good example of the government setting a good example, I'm also not sure how that creates any jobs or stimulates the economy, save for some lucky (probably Japanese) car company. The stimulus bill is a big Democratic pork projects that has now nearly tripled in size from the post-campaign number of $300 billion. There is even buzz going around that Obama is blaming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for this mess, and it's probably true. She's already got a growing mutiny on her hands, from Democratic leaders who are sick of her smoke-filled-room style of running legislation through the House. Meanwhile, in a fairly transparent last-ditch effort to gain GOP support in the Senate for the stimulus, Obama has nominated Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) to be Commerce Secretary.

The honeymoon's over, Mr. President. The new administration better start dotting their I's and crossing their T's. What was once called the "smoothest operation in D.C." is starting to look pretty sloppy to me.