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Fail: Obama Admin Now Even Failing at Chicago Style Politics

By: Lori Ziganto (Diary)  |  May 29th, 2010 at 10:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

As further proof that whatever President Obama touches turns into a huge failure, even the administration’s recent attempts at Chicago style politics have failed miserably. They are so inept, partially due to unmitigated gall, that even the one thing in which the administration is well-versed, the Chicago Way, turns into another strike against them. You would think that they’d have learned the “it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up” deal by now, but in a breathtaking display of incompetence, they’ve shown that they have not.

When President Obama was finally asked, during his first press conference in over 300 days, about Rep. Joe Sestak’s claim that he was offered a job to drop out of the PA primary, Obama had no answer. Except to say that an “official statement” would be coming shortly, basically saying “Dude, we haven’t come up with a plausible lie yet. Can’t I just finish my fabrication?”

The official statement came Friday afternoon. As Joe Klein at NewsReal wrote:

On the Friday before a long holiday weekend, the White House issued a statement admitting that President Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel arranged for former President Bill Clinton to ask Representative Joe Sestak if he would consider dropping out of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary.  Mention was made in their discussion of Sestak’s possible appointment to a prominent, but unpaid, government advisory position if he did decide to drop out.

How convenient! It was just good old Bubba. Nothing to see here, move along. We are to believe that President Clinton was the go-between? I’m sorry, but I’d run in the opposite direction if Bill Clinton started talking to me about any kind of “job.”  Especially if he had cigar in hand.

More importantly, Byron York reports that Sestak was ineligible for the job that Clinton allegedly offered him (via Allahpundit).

As a sitting member of Congress, Sestak was not eligible for the job.  And since the White House intended for Sestak to remain in his House seat, he would not have been eligible for the board after this November’s elections, provided he was re-elected to the House.

Huh. Doesn’t compute, does it? Either the entire story is a total fabrication by the White House or it wasn’t a job offer, but rather a threat.  Since being on the board would require that Sestak no longer be in Congress, it is like a figurative knee capping by the husband of the Secretary of State. You play nice or else.

While the press neglected to report on the above for the most part, at least the House Judiciary Committee members have noticed:

In addition, a spokesman for Rep. Lamar Smith, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, who on Friday asked FBI director Robert Mueller to investigate the Sestak matter, says:

“This is just another strike against the Administration’s story. Why bring in a big gun, like former President Clinton, to offer a meager job to Sestak that he wasn’t even eligible to accept? Either the administration is completely incompetent or there is a cover up. That’s why I’ve called for the FBI to get involved. We’re clearly not going to get a straight story from Sestak or the White House without an official investigation.”

I only have one problem with that. Why can’t it be both? Incompetence and cover-ups are not mutually exclusive. In fact, we are now seeing that they seem to happen often in an administration full of unwarranted hubris.

Chicago politics and mind-boggling incompetence both coming home to roost.

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(Cross-posted from NewsReal)

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COMMENTS

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  • jeffreywturner

    Obama had to come up with something that would allow him not to dispute Sestak (who is now his candidate for US Senate in a critical race), and still avoid admitting that he had committed a crime by offering (either directly or through one of his staff) a job to Sestak in order to get him out of the race.

    I mean, the only other alternative would have been for Obama to actually admit the truth about something he had done wrong. I mean we can’t expect Presidents to actually be honest can we?

    The REAL test will come in January, when the new Republican chairmen of the appropriate House committees start calling hearings on the matter, and put Sestak under oath. Will Sestak, who is a decorated Naval Officer, the highest-ranking military member ever elected to Congress, actually shed a lifetime of honor and lie under oath to cover for Obama? Or perhaps he will end up like so many of Bill Clinton’s former associates and mysteriously die right before he is due to testify. Time will tell.

  • 6eorge Jetson

    in exchange for dropping out of the Senate?

  • wennejunk

    - in Chicago, they fear a set of cement shoes or a permanent limp
    - in DC they fear getting voted out of office…. leading to a high paying lobbyist job.

    Somehow the vibe isn’t the same and doesn’t carry the same cachet for DC veteran Pols.

  • sloeride

    Oh why did we look down? And then Bill comes in to take a massive dump on an already disgusting mess. The strategy is typical postmodern film student formula. Overload the senses until nothing makes sense anymore, As by the way, we all have picnics to go to this weekend and see people we want to see…ah screw it all.
    Regardless, the Clintonian crap-sandwich explanation job offer — even unpaid — still has value. The law broken dumbasses. Ask anyone trying to beef up their resume. The money offered for any fed position, is incidental to building up street cred to be a high dollar consultant, or whatever the f one wants to do.
    Yeah, it’s great Obama is weakened…meanwhile, the Constitution requires an executive to act as an executive, Also, in the rest of the world, an emasculated US will endeavor more of the same petty tyrants getting away with using actual human lives to perpetutate psychotic fantasies.
    Oh Obama, yeah, you suck, as does anyone who thinks you are anything but a tautology of BS.

  • redneck_hippie

    both stepped in it big time. Last night on his program Mark Levin was clear on the fact that the statement put out by Obama’s counsel was an admission of guilt. Mark, along with FOX news aren’t going to let this slide off the radar screen.

  • Adjoran

    Because it is at least possible that it happened that way.

    Obama is claiming he offered Sestak essentially nothing – an unpaid post he couldn’t even accept unless he lost his House seat in addition to dropping out of the Senate race.

    Furthermore, in order to present this offer of nothing, he had to recruit the former President who was responsible for Sestak’s last few promotions.

    If those two situations haven’t stretched your credulity all out of shape, Clinton supposedly agrees to do this – to offer one of his few strong supporters in the military command structure nothing for something. Uh-huh – like he wouldn’t laugh at the idea.

    Sorry, it doesn’t pass the laugh test, especially in light of Sestak’s excited utterance when first asked that, yes, he was offered a high-ranking job to drop out. He confirmed that last week on MTP, coming ever so close to confirming the job offered was SecNav – which happens to be the office the reporter who asked him in March had heard from TWO Administration sources in a position to know. Some coincidence there, isn’t it?

    Of course, the lying leftist America-hating shills who support and cover for Obama’s every misstep, fumble, and blunder, are harping that Sestak couldn’t have been offered SecNav since the law requires such offices not be filled with anyone on active duty within five years (which for Sestak would mean not until this July). They conveniently overlook that Sestak could simply serve out his House term to eliminate that concern.

    The Obamanistas’ other red herring is that the office is filled already! SO WHAT? It’s an appointment to serve at the President’s pleasure and he can hire and fire Secretaries as he deems fit. After the midterm election would be a common time for turnover anyway, so this “defense” is thin tissue indeed.

    Now, IF it were as Obama claims, they could have come out with the story much earlier instead of feeding it and increasing the attention on it with their dodges and silent evasions.

    Anyone buying the Obama version should contact me for a great deal on a prominent bridge in Brooklyn, NY.

  • spepper

    the only thing that Der Shlikmeister is even capable of offering a job to ANYONE, is Monica Lewinsky’s babysitter…….I’m smelling a strategy to give Hillary’s campaign a headstart for ’12, by the classic Clinton technique: start fires in any other opponent’s camp, including the POTUS’s……..

  • acat

    You know, the guy who wants to be gangster so wears his pants on the ground, as much gold-tinted junk he can borrow, and uses derogatory words for women?

    Maybe you’ve met a mafioso-wannabe – one who wears the sharp suits with the dark sunglasses, has an Italian accent (despite being from Zion, IL and of german ancestry) and talks about leaning on people…

    Submitted for your approval: Obama is a Chicago Way wannabe.

    Mew

    • Achance

      Democrat Administrations don’t work that way. The elected official is an empty, stylish suit, and the only thing s/he does is run around to things s/he can take credit for and run from anything s/he can be blamed for. At most, He probably knew that Rahm or somebody was going to do something to at least make it look like the Administration was helping out their pet turncoat, Specter. Likewise, I don’t think Clinton is the one who made the offer; he’s just in to act as a shield.

      In a Democrat administration, the Party, the media, and the other elected and appointed officials act as a force field to keep anything bad from hitting the Governor or President; the COS is in charge of operating and maintaining that force field. Either Rahmbo called in a personal chit with WJC to cover his butt on this or the Administration has something on WJC that they can use to make him do stuff like this. Enough political pressure would cause somebody to do something to Emmanuel if this came down on him but NOBODY is going to take a run a charging Slick Willie with anything ever again. That guy has the best get out of jail free card in the Country!

  • http://www.scragged.com petrarch

    I mean, given that Obama almost certainly did something illegal, it beggars belief to expect that he’d come out and say, “I did it, where’s the handcuffs?” OF COURSE he’s going to lie. Sad to say, so would any high official in that position, Republican or Democrat.

  • http://www.voteforteri2010.com teridavisnewman

    How stupid does Obama think we are? He must think we are all dumber than dirt because after all, America did elect him. Considering that he conned enough of America to become POTUS he apparently seems to think that we are ALL dumb as rocks and that we will believe any BS he tells us. I think there needs to be a Congressional hearing to sort this out, followed by impeachment proceedings. Maybe we can impeach The One and actually have him removed from office.

  • http://www.periodictablet.com superamerican

    But the most friegtening part is that he thinks we are idiots, too. Actually he thinks he’s leadership personified. What a sick joke on America. But fear not, the left-wing propaganda media and the Democratic Party will not allow this to go much further.

    http://www.periodictablet.com

    Superamerican

  • tlhanger

    I smell a huge rat! They so hope we forget this. Much worse than Watergate.

  • cactusjack

    I would love to know what he knows (or has on Obama?) and can prove up with emails, phone calls, or witnesses. The plot is thickening in Chicago Politics on the Potomac.