Chutzpah is what they would call it in New York.  That’s what Treasury Secretary-designee Timothy Geithner has after having accepted President-elect Obama’s nomination, knowing that he had failed to pay $42,000 in  taxes and had employed a housekeeper whose work permit had expired.

The gall of it all is that, what the Obama transition team is calling simple “mistakes or oversights,” was actually found out through the Obama vetting process and that $26,000 of the back taxes weren’t paid until November, just before his nomination went to the Senate Finance Committee for official review.

Nevertheless the Obama team has a full-court press of talking points out to keep these ethical questions from sinking the nomination.

According to the talking points, the legal status of Geithner’s former housekeeper didn’t lapse until the last three months of her employment.

The effort to save Geithner is in contrast to how quickly Obama dumped Commerce Secretary nominee Bill Richardson at the first whiff of scandal in New Mexico.

“The president-elect chose Tim Geithner to be his treasury secretary because he’s the right person to help lead our economic recovery during these challenging times,” incoming White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.

“That service should not be tarnished by honest mistakes, which, upon learning of them, he quickly addressed.  He made a common mistake on his taxes and was unaware that his part-time housekeeper’s work authorization expired for the last three months of her employment.” Gibbs said.

I wonder if the Government, the banks and credit card companies are so kind and compassionate to the millions of people that have lost their homes to foreclosure, or those that can’t pay-off loans or back payments on purchases, or their taxes?

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said the economic problems facing the country are too serious to allow Geithner’s nomination to go down.

Amazing, if this guy is so bright that he will be the Czar that is going to take us out of these troubled times, how come he wasn’t bright enough to pay his taxes and only recently paid off $26,000 of the $42,000 he owed after he found-out he was going to be named Treasury Secretary?

Now it’s not like he is being nominated dog catcher-designee, he is going to be responsible for printing all this money that we are handing out and overseeing the Internal Revenue Service, who is responsible for collecting the taxes he selected not to pay.

Somehow, I just don’t get it . . . but, then again, I don’t think I’m alone.