Sometimes the truth comes out when one least expects it:

Officials said yesterday that myriad tax questions had been posed to Daschle, Killefer and Geithner. But the problems were largely dismissed as less important than the nominees’ qualifications for the major tasks they were expected to confront in office, the officials said.

One person familiar with the appointment process said Obama and his top advisers were concerned about the possibility of political “combustion” occurring over the tax issues. “People were not unaware that might happen,” the official said. But they believed that Geithner and Daschle were uniquely qualified.

“We knew he’d get punched around on this, and that he had made a painful mistake,” John D. Podesta, who co-chaired Obama’s transition team, said of Daschle. “But we believed he could be confirmed and that he was — and I still believe this — the right guy for the job of leading the department and finally getting health-care reform across the finish line.”

Okay, so, let’s review… the Obama team knew about these three nominee’s tax problems but nominated them anyway, figuring that they could somehow sneak or force them through.

That right there says a lot about the governing philosophy of the Obama Administration.