Charles Krauthammer's Excellent Summation of Sestak Bribe

White House's Sestak-Memo Proves Law Was Violated
Maybe it’s because the world is crumbling around this young and inexperienced administration, but the White House Memo on their job offer to Rep Joe Sestak is a clear admission of guilt. I have no idea who much they are paying their lawyers, but they aren’t worth a dime. Here is a key passage from the WH memo containing two clear sentences: [1] The White House Chief of Staff enlisted the support of former President Bill Clinton who agreed to raise with Congressman Sestak options of...

Rahm to Bill to Joe
At his Thursday Press Conference, President Obama 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 yesterday's pre-Memorial Day weekend news dump, now we know. Sort of. Maybe. In a way. Last summer, Mr. Sestak said he'd been offered a high-ranking federal job in return for ending his ultimately successful bid to depose Arlen Specter, an act of...

Rendell says he too offered job to a Pennsylvania congressman
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, center speaks during a News Conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 26, 2010. From left to right, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Mary Kay Henry, Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., Rendell, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and AFSCME President Gerald McEntee. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Just days after the Obama Administration claimed it did nothing improper by offering Rep. Joe Sestak a job to Drop Out of the Pennsylvania...

Analysis: Politics as usual for Obama
Washington— So much for changing how Washington works. Crimping his carefully crafted outsider image and undercutting a centerpiece of his 2008 campaign, President Barack Obama got caught playing the usual politics -- dangling a job offer for a Political favor in the hunt for power. His lawyer admitted as much in a Friday report that detailed how Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel dispatched former President Bill Clinton to try to persuade Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak to abandon his Primary...

White House transparency could have ended Sestak 'scandal'
OKAY, if all the facts are out, then we would agree: Nothing inappropriate happened. On the basis of the memorandum issued Friday by White House Counsel Robert F. Bauer , the Joe Sestak job-for-dropping-out-of-Senate-race scandal is a non-scandal -- except for the White House's bungling of the episode. The unnecessary coverup, it turns out, is always worse than the non-crime. This Story View All Items in This Story View Only Top Items in This Story The talk had been that the White House had...

You Can Take the Pol Out of Chicago. . .
As he often does, Obama tried to distance himself from his own administration’s mess. He ducked a personal response

Rendell: Stonewalling on Sestak 'Not Smart'
By Mary Lu Carnevale The uproar over the White House disclosure it had tapped former President Bill Clinton to see if Rep. Joe Sestak could be enticed to Drop his Senate Primary bid in Pennsylvania got a new round of attention on the Sunday Talk Shows. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (Photo by Chris Kleponis/Getty Images) Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell , appearing on Fox News Sunday, got this question from host Chris Wallace : "If it isn’t illegal and it isn’t improper, do you...

White House: Clinton was sent to deal with Sestak
The admission left many questions unanswered, however, and Republicans weren't ready to let the issue rest. For Obama, the revelations called into question his repeated promises to run an open government that was above back room deals. And for Sestak, it raised questions why he ever brought up the offers in the first place. Seeking to quiet the clamor over a possible political trade, the White House released a report describing the offer that was intended to clear a path for Sen. Arlen Specter...

Linda R. Monk, J.D.: Rahm Is Done: It's a Crime, Stupid!
Rule Number One: When reporting a political story that may involve criminal conduct, read the relevant law first. Leading media outlets have stated flat-out that there was nothing illegal about White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel asking former president Bill Clinton to offer Rep. Joe Sestak a position on a federal commission if he stayed in the House, rather than challenging Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic Primary. Politics as usual, they say. Everybody does it. A New York Times...

Rendell: Sestak job handling 'hard-knuckle,' 'not smart'
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said Sunday that the White House was "not smart" in waiting to report details of its offer to give Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) a job in the administration in exchange for not running for the Senate. "Stonewalling it for months? Yes, not smart," Rendell, a former head of the Democratic National Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday." "This explanation is perfectly reasonable. They should have put it out there at the...

AP Throws Pity Party for Overwhelmed Obama: Oil Spill Just One 'Priority'
On Saturday, the Associated Press informed its readers that President Obama cannot be expected to focus all of his attention on the Gulf Coast Oil Spill. The reason? Presidents have to juggle a number of pressing issues at a time, and what with America being in a Recession, Obama simply can't afford to give sole focus to this disaster. Too bad the AP wasn't so understanding in 2005 when President Bush was perceived as being detached from the suffering in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina....

The Official Joe Sestak Story, Which No One is Buying
The official story: Bill Clinton did it and there’s nothing to see here. Bullshit. First, Byron York of the Washington Examiner points out that Joe Sestak was ineligible for the position Clinton supposedly offered to him… In a little-noticed passage Friday, the New York Times reported that Rep. Joe Sestak was not eligible for a place on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, the job he was reportedly offered by former President Bill Clinton. As a sitting member of...

Sestak Was Ineligible for Job Offered
In an interesting wrinkle in the Sestak Saga, it seems that Rep. Joe Sestak was not even eligible for the job that was allegedly offered to have him Drop Out of the Pennsylvania Primary: In a little-noticed passage Friday, the New York Times reported that Rep. Joe Sestak was not eligible for a place on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, the job he was reportedly offered by former President Bill Clinton.

Tidbits
John McCain on the President: "There are legitimate questions as to whether he's out of his depth or not” Taranto quotes a job description for the “me” generation: My job right now is just to make sure that everybody in the Gulf understands this is what I wake up to in the morning and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about: the spill. And Byron York quotes the NYT : the New York Times reported that Rep. Joe Sestak was not eligible for a place on the...

Sestak: Bill Clinton offered him job to quit race
For nearly three months this year, President Obama and his senior White House aides resisted acknowledging what the top West Wing lawyer finally admitted on Friday: This administration plays politics. This Story View All Items in This Story View Only Top Items in This Story And not always effectively. In classic Washington Fashion last summer, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel dispatched former president Bill Clinton to put the arm on an old friend, Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania....

The Fix: How the Sestak job offer became a big deal
Party leaders and campaign operatives -- on nearly a daily basis -- approach challenger Candidates seeking to disrupt the established political order with a simple message: Get out or else. And so, the report this morning that former President Bill Clinton was tasked by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to make such an approach to Rep. Joe Sestak -- allegedly offering him an unpaid advisory role on an intelligence board in exchange for getting him to drop his Primary bid against Sen....

The Latest On The Sestak Bribe And Cover-Up
Bzzzzzt.

Issa: If investigation into Sestak affair exonerates White House, 'I'll accept that'
05/30/10 09:55 AM ET The ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee continued Sunday to call for an independent investigation into the administration position offered to Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), and stressed that he would accept the results of that probe even if it exonerated the White House. But Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), appearing on "Fox News Sunday," said he believes that the offering of a position to Sestak -- an offer conveyed by former President Bill Clinton...

Liz Cheney on Bill Clinton: "There's Not Exactly an Impeccable Record of Integrity There on the Part of the Former President" (Video)
Liz Cheney on Clinton’s involvement in the Sestak Scandal: “It wasn’t exactly reassuring to the American public that Bill Clinton was involved. there’s not exactly an impeccable record of integrity there on the part of the former president.” True. Liz Cheney on Fox News Sunday: “The White House put out a statement on the Friday before Memorial Day announcing that Bill Clinton had been involved which I’m sure was not reassuring to most Americans. I mean...

Issa: I'd Accept FBI Exoneration of White House in Sestak Affair
A California congressman who called it an "impeachable" offense for the administration to offer Rep. Joe Sestak a job in exchange for his quitting a Senate bid said Sunday he would accept the result if an FBI investigation exonerates the White House of an illegal bribe.  Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said President Obama pledged to conduct a transparent administration when he was a Candidate for the nation's top office so he should be willing to submit to a review of his administration's...

Hell Freezes! Our Lady with Pearls Praises Pres. Clinton
…He's spending the holiday weekend in Chicago when he should be commemorating Memorial Day here with the families of Troops killed in battle and with Veterans at Arlington Cemetery. [...] … F.D.R. achieved greatness not by means of imposing his temperament and intellect on the world but by reacting to what the world threw at him. [...] … Instead of getting Bill Clinton to offer Joe Sestak a job, Obama should be offering Clinton one. Bill would certainly know how to gush at...

White House Sestak Story Doesn't Pass The Smell Test
One would think that the President of the United States would have enough respect for the people who put him in office to offer an explanation that was remotely believable. The White House released an explanation of the Job offer. The claim is that Rahm Emanuel sent Bill Clinton to meet with Congressmen Sestak to offer an unpaid Advisory position which he would hold along with his congressional job if he were to give up his quest for the Democratic nomination. The letter issued by the White...

WH Counsel: Clinton, Not WH Aides, Talked To Sestak
As President Obama promised at yesterday's Press Conference, the White House has released its internal review of discussions between administration officials and Rep. Joe Sestak (D), and whether any legal or ethical lines were breached in an effort to push the Pennsylvania Democrat out of the Senate race. The finding of White House Counsel Bob Bauer is that "allegations of improper conduct rest on factual errors and lack a basis in the law." But he does find that "options for Executive Branch...

Sestak Story Getting Less Believeable By the Minute
From the minute the White House issued their statement on the Sestak Scandal, people have been questioning the White House’s version of events. (Notice I didn’t imply that it was the truth.) With each passing minute, more questions are being raised . What’s worse (for Sestak and the Obama Administration) is that information is surfacing that says Rep. Sestak, as an elected official, wasn’t eligible to serve on this Board : According to the Board's official Web...

Sestak Story Getting Less Believeable By the Minute
From the minute the White House issued their statement on the Sestak Scandal, people have been questioning the White House’s version of events. (Notice I didn’t imply that it was the truth.) With each passing minute, more questions are being raised . What’s worse (for Sestak and the Obama Administration) is that information is surfacing that says Rep. Sestak, as an elected official, wasn’t eligible to serve on this Board : According to the Board's official Web...