Closing the Gate: My Two Cents on Cleaning Up

Spare Change | 28 May 2010 | David J. Aland

[SpareChange]

Closing the Gate: My Two Cents On Cleaning Up

By David J. Aland /// 28 May 2010

The Washington Post online columnist, Chris Cillizza, discussing the continuing fallout of what some insiders are now calling “Jobs-Gate”, got it both right and wrong. Quoting an unnamed Party official, he asks: “How do you make something out of nothing? By acting guilty…” His point was that the White House had allowed the allegations that Congressman Sestak was offered an Obama Administration job to needlessly blow up into a full-grown scandal, when there was really nothing of substance – but that the clumsy handling of it made it look so much worse.

He’s right when he notes that this was poorly handled. The White House allowed Sestak’s assertion several months ago, that he was offered a job in return for dropping out of the Democrat primary against Arlen Specter, to go unchallenged or explained. The formal response of the White House to repeated inquiries, including those from reporters as well as lawmakers, had all the earmarks of stonewalling. Regardless of what substance there may have been to the allegations, the White House response seemed guilty.

In a way, we have Richard Nixon to blame for this, including the tendency to name every little DC scandal “something-Gate.” The loss of prestige to the office of the Presidency that resulted from the gradual (but eventually explosive) unfolding of the Watergate coverup has never been fully repaired. Entire generations of reporters now live for the chance to catch the White House in an innocuous lie that will blossom into an inexorable scandal. Since those heady days of Bradlee, Woodward, and Bernstein, every Press Secretary who seems reluctant to answer a question is assumed to be hiding something.

But Cillizza may also be wrong. Just because one is paranoid doesn’t mean that one hasn’t any enemies. While the enthusiasm of the Press (admittedly, not the mainstream press, but the conservative press) may have raised Congressman Sestak’s off-hand comment to where it is now, that doesn’t necessarily mean there is nothing to it. Sometimes acting guilty is exactly what guilty people do.

One way to explain the weeks of stammering and stonewalling by Robert Gibbs would be that the White House honestly thought the issue was a tempest in a teapot. Another explanation would be that it was another kind of teapot – an issue that could not be easily explained and therefore could not be addressed. It speaks ill of an Administration whose election campaign was so media-savvy that the White House did not realize that continued denials and blanket assurances would eventually sound fishy even to the most supportive reporters.

That the President was wholly unprepared to address the issue at his rare press conference on Thursday only further reinforced that perception. Now, in the wake of his assurance that a “full report” would be forthcoming, we hear first that the President lunched with Bill Clinton, then said it was former President Clinton who actually did the talking with Congressman Sestak. Additionally, it has been reported that the White House also coordinated with Sestak’s campaign manager before releasing that news. Good staffing, or just getting the stories straight?

This kind of flopping around is becoming a signature behavior of the Obama White House, regardless of the issue. Columnist Peggy Noonan notes that the messy management of the health-care legislation, the tin-eared response to illegal immigration concerns, and the eventual assertions of leadership in the oil spill response reflect a deeper problem with this Administration: an inability to close the gate. We will eventually find out if anything truly illegal transpired in the Sestak affair, but so far the White House has not been very convincing. Clearing the electoral field is a common enough practice in politics, but the pretending it isn’t done is not the way to spin it, which is what the White House appears to have attempted to this point. Chances are, the next set of answers, muddied already by the appearance of collusion, are not going to clear the air at all.

At the most fundamental level, there are two reasons something becomes a “something-Gate”: one is that something wrong was done, and the other is that something wrong was said. While the jury is out on the first, the second is clearly true. The White House may have already lost the opportunity to close the gate on this affair. In the aggregate, that kind of behavior is going to cost this President, and by obvious extension, every one of us as well.

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David J. Aland is a retired Naval Officer with a graduate degree in National Security Affairs from the U. S. Naval War College.

[sionnsar]

In a way, we have Richard Nixon to blame for this, including the tendency to name every little DC scandal “something-Gate.”

That blame falls to the jernalists [sic], who can neither spell, write nor report factually, but who seek nothing less than political fame by prostituting their profession.

Um. Sorry. Prostitutes are more honest than presstitutes. Prostitutes negotiate (so I am told) a deal upfront and (mostly) carry through to be paid for services rendered. MUCH more trustworthy than a presstitute.

[ncfool]

The offer to Sestak was just an opening offer and not the final job!

Obama and Rahmbo are guilty and an investigation needs to move forward on this item. We need an independant prosocutor to find ont the truth.

[eyedigress]

one is that something wrong was done, and the other is that something wrong was said.

Wrong = Illegal

[dynachrome]

And the Andrew Romanoff offer in Colorado was just a coincidence?

[SandRat]

First we have clean up the Oil-Spill in Congress the we can clean the Gulf.