After months of innocently gathering all the 'facts', the White House chaps now claim they tried to bait Sestak into not running for the U.S. Senate with the irresistible lure of service on an irrelevant panel without pay and that this enticing job offer wasn't a bribe because the position is unenticing, unpaid and because ballerina dancer Rahm Emanuel used a conduit to offer the bribe.
According to the White House's just-released thorough review of itself, morally upright and ethical Bill Clinton innocently approached Sestak last year to discuss tempting "options of service" on an "advisory board" if he agreed to eschew the Senate race. Clinton: Don't run for Senate and you'll enjoy the lavish trappings of a dream job on an obscure board without compensation!
The White House's story is so unconvincing that the media are convinced it's true! According to the diligent press which hasn't been on top of this story for months, the allegation of misconduct involving a job offer to Sestak in exchange for his dropping out of the race is 'thoroughly' 'refuted' by a memo confirming a job offer to Sestak in exchange for his dropping out of the race. White House: It took us February, March, April and most of May to offer up our innocent little story. And this is not damage control. Trust us!
White House counsel Robert Bauer's memo claims nothing improper happened because no White House staff was used to make the job proposition since the proposition was made by White House staff through Bill Clinton.
Liberals insist this self-serving conclusion from a discredited 'investigation' somehow exonerates the White House because (a) the White House conducted the 'investigation' and (b) a White House bribe isn't a bribe if the White House uses an outside emissary or fixer to offer the bribe, which would only make it a criminal conspiracy. See? All innocent. Relax.
Liberals scream that this is Washington, this kind of stuff goes on all the time, relax, no big deal, grow up, man. In the next breath, libbies affirm belief in the cock-and-bull tale the White House concocted -- a volunteer position without pay on some snore-fest advisory board was all that tiny dancer Rahm dangled to buy off a Congressman seeking a U.S. Senate gig.
University of Virginia honcho Larry Sabato insists that nothing improper happened, just "garden variety politics," and that he's "too old and cynical" to be shocked by any of this totally 'proper' conduct and believes the White House's fairy tale completely. Liberal Fox News analyst Lis Wiehl says she doesn't understand why the White House took so "long in coming out with this memo from Bauer" and "I don't understand why they didn't come out with it sooner," but believes every word in it is true. Really? The memo says the White House spent two months trying to get Sestak to back out. But Sestak said in his presser he chatted with Clinton only once about Rahm's job offer and touched on it briefly at that. Even after the heads-up Sestak's brother got from the White House to get everybody to parrot Bauer's cooked-up alibi, Sestak gave the game away by going clumsily off script with that itty-bitty discrepancy. Only chatted once with Clinton about a job? Memo says June and July. Who else did you chat with about a job you're highly ineligible for? (President's Intelligence Advisory Board gigs aren't open to sitting Congressman under current rules.)
And what about the gig on USAID offered to you by Obama's deputy chief of staff Jim Messina? Oops, hold on -- that's another bribe, this one a failed effort to buy off Andrew Romanoff from a primary run against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet. Sorry. Hard to keep all this totally 'above board' and 'proper behavior' straight.
Anyway, that's...
My Two Cents...
"JohnHuang2"
After months of innocently gathering hiding all the 'facts', the White House chaps now claim... There, fixed.
Liberal Fox News analyst Lis Wiehl says she doesn't understand why the White House took so "long in coming out with this memo from Bauer" and "I don't understand why they didn't come out with it sooner,"
Because they just created it Lis. Lis? I never heard THAT first name before... but she is hot for a lib so she's an anomaly.
The White House's story is so unconvincing that the media are convinced it's true!
Aha, the criteria has been met.
Great analysis Johnny!
Yep. This guy is definitely a loose cannon, the pressure will continue to be applied to him, as he's staying in his bid for the Senate seat -- I'm counting on it being him who finally folds. He's not careful and he doesn't know how to lie, to keep the lies straight.
The first words out of his mouth were that he'd been contacted by a White House official -- Bill Clinton could in no way be characterized as such. This story has more holes in it than my hunk of Swiss cheese up in the fridge.
Wonderful firing for effect - but not on target.You call the plum, whatever it actually was, a "bribe." The trouble with that line of reasoning is only that no one is entitled to have Joe Sestak run for the Democratic nomination for Senator from Pennsylvania. Mr. Sestak would have incurred no liability whatsoever by declining to run against Arlen Specter (the defeat of whose reelection bid, let us stipulate, is unquestionably a public service).
The problem which the "Clinton ex machina" cock and bull story fails to address is the concluding sentence of Section 6 of Article I of the Constitution, which concludes:
no person holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office.The violation of the Constitution in this case lies not in the object of Mr. Obama's manipulations, but in the very fact that he used his position to offer (through intermediaries be they never so numerous and/or distinguished) a sitting Congressman a job in Obama's gift, to be held concurrently with his continuing to sit as a Congressman. I fail to see what the kerfuffle was about, when it was rumored that Obama had offered Sestak the Secretary of the Navy gig. Had he accepted that position, there could have been no question of his retaining his seat as a congressman.Ironically, I'm not aware of the rule which would inhibit a president from openly naming a Congressman to an executive position provided the Congressman resigns from Congress to accept it. As Senator Clinton (D,NY) did when she accepted the Secretary of State position, for example.