Why can't they behave?

President-elect Obama's choice for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, has a problem — two, in fact. That we know of.

He employed a housekeeper who lacked proper work papers. You might ask, "So what?" It's just a little thing, nothing to get excited about. Unless, of course, you still remember "Nannygate," the hiring of an illegal immigrant that shot down an earlier nominee for a Cabinet position. But, be that as it may, different times, different folks.

The second of Mr. Geithner's problems is that over a period of several years, while an employee of the International Monetary Fund, he neglected to pay his Social Security and Medicare taxes and late-payment interest to the tune of roughly $43,000. That's chump change for someone who subsequently moved on up to head the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he oversaw distribution of the first $350 billion of federal "stimulus" money.

Senators who will vote to confirm his Cabinet appointment do not appear overly concerned by either of these "honest mistakes," even though one of his larger responsibilities at Treasury will be oversight of the Internal Revenue Service.

Neither do they seem likely to do more than gently slap the wrist of one of their own, Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Banking Committee.

Dodd, readers may recall, received a sweetheart mortgage deal from Countrywide, as one of that financial firm's more prominent "Friends of Angelo." Countrywide, incidentally, has since been acquired by Bank of America.

Meanwhile, over on the House side, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who took up the gavel two years ago with a promise to "drain the swamp" and clear up ethical abuses ignored by her Republican predecessor, has a festering problem of her own — what to do with New York Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means committee. That's the panel that writes the tax laws all the rest of us are required to follow.

Rep. Rangel failed to report taxable income earned from a rental property in the Dominican Republic, a rental property he's owned for some 20 years.

He also owns several rent-controlled apartments in New York City, where most everyone else knows, only too well, the legal limit is one.

Well, what can you say? It's this blasted tax code, a hundred thousand pages or so of gobbledygook that not even smart lawyers can make much sense of.

How can anyone expect busy people like congressmen and Wall Street's "masters of the universe" to keep up with it all?