Tom Daschle’s withdrawal from consideration as future secretary of Health and Human Services had to happen. So seemingly strong on health-care policy but weak on ethics, the man President Obama had picked to remake the American health-care system had set off wild mood swings among the public.

On one hand, the former senator from South Dakota brimmed with smarts on reforming health care. On the other, his failure to pay at least $128,000 in back taxes and eagerness to make big money off the people he would regulate spoke of sloppy standards, at best, and an infuriating sense of entitlement.

Taxes were only one piece of his baggage. In the four years since losing his Senate seat to Republican John Thune, the Democrat made an easy $5 million letting various businesses use his name and influence. Experts say his activities fell short of lobbying government (by the technical definition), but not by much. Most distressing was the near quarter-million he made from health-care companies.

Drawing a sharp line between life in government and life in commerce had never been a Daschle strength. While Tom held a leadership position in the Senate, his wife, Linda, worked as a paid lobbyist for, among other industries, health care.

On paper, he correctly framed the mission as more than bringing health coverage to the uninsured. It was also to control costs. That is the hard part because it means interrupting someone’s revenue stream.

Daschle had supported including a government plan in any smorgasbord of coverage options, which the insurance industry would fight fang and claw. He talked of creating an independent Federal Health Board empowered to decide what government health programs would cover. And he wanted to deny payment for expensive new drugs and procedures that don’t improve available treatments.

Daschle also backed making single payments for a medical episode (for example, a heart attack or knee replacement). That would reduce the financial incentives for unnecessary care. It would also give doctors and hospitals another reason for doing a good job the first time.

And he continued to criticize the Medicare drug benefit for its awful design. The program is enormously expensive because it cut private insurers into the deal.

That was Daschle talking good health-care policy. But when new legislation gets written, could we trust an author so keen to make money from corporate interests?

No one expects the Obama administration to be as clean as the candidate vowed. But if Daschle sailed through, then the political capital that promise held would have vanished.