It's a ho-hum, dog-bites-man story: News coverage of the House stimulus bill focuses solely on Republicans voting against it en masse and barely mentions, if at all, the man-bites-dog fact that 11 Democrats voted against it, too.

Ignoring facts that contradict the good-guy-bad-guy story line? That's old news in the news biz. But when even Fox Radio reporters take this approach and fail, in many hourly updates, to mention bipartisan opposition to the bill ... well then, everything is breaking the new administration's way.

Given this momentum, given many journalists' open cheerleading for this Washington-approved narrative -- "Will obstructionist Republicans get behind Barack Obama in the New Democratic Era, and if not, really, what's their stupid problem?" -- Tom Daschle's gotta be wondering where it all went wrong.

So does Nancy Killefer. And Hilda Solis.

Why should a few little tax errors -- all honest mistakes, surely -- derail their nominations? Why should they fall when all around them, other Democrats are bumbling and stumbling without any loss of face?

Nancy Pelosi inspired hours of hilarity on talk radio last week when C-Span video surfaced of a speech in which she warns, "Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package 500 million Americans lose their jobs." She used the same number in a mid-January interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News.

Surely the speaker of the House knows that the entire population of the United States is only 305 million. She meant, both times, to say 500,000. But other pols pilloried for each and every slip of the tongue (George W. Bush and Sarah Palin spring easily to mind) might fairly ask: Where are the condescending editorial cartoons? The "Saturday Night Live" sketches? Who gets to craft another person's caricature for history?

Also last week, at a Democratic Caucus retreat, President Barack Obama attacked Republican critics of his deficit-expanding stimulus bill by saying, "I found this deficit when I showed up." (Which justifies doubling it?)

Any fair-minded news coverage would have to point out that prior to his presidency, Mr. Obama was a member of Congress who voted on tax and spending bills. Maybe that's why most major news organizations didn't cover the speech at all -- that, and the fact that the video reveals the usually self-disciplined president as rather angry, not cool and in control.

And Timothy Geithner? Tom Daschle and the other Obama nominees beset by tax problems may be wondering why Mr. Geithner was confirmed as Treasury secretary and head of the IRS despite his IRS woes. Why are some Democrats unharmed by -- even protected from -- their mistakes while others falter?

First, would-be officials who rely on appointment to achieve office -- rather than electoral victories -- are subject to the erratic judgments of inside-the-Beltway wind-direction testers and tea-leaf readers.

And second, Mr. Geithner got there first. He was the first nominee with tax problems whose appointment went to vote. The first one is a "gimme."

Future nominees who fear they might not be first in line and thus shoo-ins should probably be asking themselves now, as Mr. Geithner failed to do, "Should I expect other taxpayers to subsidize the cost of my children's summer day camp?" Or, "Should I call H&R Block?"

Last Tuesday, a week after Mr. Geithner's far-from-unanimous confirmation, Nancy Killefer withdrew her bid as "chief performance officer" when word spread that she had performed poorly, repeatedly failing to pay local unemployment compensation on a household employee -- possibly her personal assistant or one of two nannies. (Those 500 million Americans who face imminent unemployment might not easily overlook this lapse.)

Also on Tuesday, Hilda Solis saw her nomination as labor secretary put in doubt when news surfaced that her husband has $6,400 in unresolved tax liens against his business. And by day's end, Tom Daschle, the biggest tax offender of all (to the tune of $140,000) withdrew his nomination as secretary of Health and Human Services.

For the Dems, Tuesday was Mardi Blah.

The party of the left, after all, is the one that believes in correcting income inequality through taxation -- "redistributing the wealth," in Mr. Obama's words. But when proponents of this political philosophy spectacularly fail to put their money where their mouths are -- in the federal government -- well, the hypocrisy becomes a bit of a public relations nightmare, for them and the president.

One nominee not getting all his taxes paid is an anomaly, but a steady stream of them? That's a crisis of faith.