Democratic congressman and retired navy admiral Joe Sestak was sort of, kind of, offered a job that isn’t a job in the Obama Administration—this in exchange for dropping out of a primary race for US Senate. But, don’t worry, it wasn’t a crime. At his press conference last week the President said that ‘I can assure the public that nothing improper took place’ in the curious case of Joe Sestak and the Pennsylvania Senate primary — but he declined to say what, exactly, took place.
After a ton of double-speak, here’s what it seemed happened. Last summer, Mr. Sestak said he’d been offered a high-ranking federal job in return for ending his ultimately successful bid to depose a sitting senator; this act of interfering in an election that would constitute a felony if it was direct enough. The account released by the White House says that Rahm Emanuel enlisted Bill Clinton ‘to determine whether Congressman Sestak would be interested in service on a Presidential or other Senior Executive Branch Advisory Board.’ And the post ‘would have been uncompensated.’ So a former President whose wife is the Secretary of State ran some errands for the White House chief of staff, and the fantastic job he was offering was a seat on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, or perhaps the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships? Mr. Sestak was supposed to give up his reasonable chance at a Senate seat in return.
Somehow, this stinks. I’d like someone to tell us the truth, but I sure don’t expect it.
