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Washington Prowler
Joe to Joe
Joe Biden goes missing in the Joe Sestak revelations. Also: Cantor’s McCarthy site.
MISSING IN ACTION
Some
Democrats on Capitol Hill were caught off guard by the White
House announcement on Friday that placed former President
Bill Clinton and Obama Chief of Staff
Rahm Emanuel at the center of the Rep.
Joe Sestak job bribery
scandal.
“We expected at the end of the day that somehow Joe Biden would be involved,” says one Democrat leadership source. “He was much more involved in the Specter recruitment and had more invested in getting Specter what he wanted.”
Indeed, Specter and several senior advisers, according to Democrat Senate sources, went several times to Biden and his staff complaining about Sestak and the fact that the field had not been cleared for Specter as the “new Democrat” had hoped. Specter advisers say that their candidate spoke several times with frustration to Biden after the switch about Sestak’s candidacy.
While Specter was not promised a clear field, Democrats did work to accomplish just that. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell acolyte and former National Constitution Center head Joe Torsella was the only Democrat in the primary at the time of Specter’s switch in late April 2009, and Rendell persuaded him to drop out rather quickly from the race. After that, Rendell made it known that he was working behind the scenes to cut off Sestak’s in-state fundraising resources from major donors to the party.
“Sestak and the White House are now saying that the conversation was brief and Sestak is a bit unclear on the offer now,” says one Republican Senate leadership aide. “We think there is more to this than what is out there, and the White House explanation, if you look at it, simply doesn’t make sense. The fact that the vice president, who usually has something to say about anything, is not saying a word on all of this is very interesting to a number of his former colleagues up here in the Senate.”
A NEW McCARTHYISM
Some House Republicans are grumbling about deputy whip Rep.
Kevin McCarthy’s foray into “new media politics”
with his “America Speaking Out” website,
which has become a bit of an online embarrassment to him, and his
boss, Eric Cantor.
“I want to know how much our conference paid out to political and new media consultants for a website that appears to be nothing more than a thinly disguised effort to collect email and mobile phone numbers, but sits there filled with Democrat and left-wing trolls posting and voting on ideas like having white people guard non-white people, support net neutrality and elect more progressives,” says one House member from a Southern state. “It’s amateurish and reinforces the impression that Republicans aren’t very good at this kind of online politicking.”
For months, McCarthy has been meeting privately with groups of House GOP members, discussing ways to rebottle the magic of the 1994 “Contract with America.” But the real work appears to be taking place elsewhere. Barry Jackson, House GOP Leader John Boehner’ s chief of staff, is said to be directing much of the effort in shaping a 1994-like platform for Republicans to run on. Jackson, who spent time in the Bush White House, was a Boehner aide in the runup to the 1994 Contract, and worked with the staffs of Rep. Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich to develop the Contract with America.
McCarthy’s effort is believed to be the curtain raiser on several months worth of projects that will lead up to an early fall campaign centered on a set of achievable policy objectives and House operations proposals that Republican House candidates can campaign on. “The sense here is that where 1994’s document was quite a bit of House operations stuff, this one has to be a bit broader on national policy objectives, like cutting spending. Greater transparency of House operations is certainly going to be a big theme, though,” says a House leadership aide.
But some House Republicans are wondering why money is being poured into expensive projects like “Speaking Out” and consultant contracts, when the American people and grassroots movements like the Tea Parties and 9-12ers have laid out a fairly clear agenda that can be adapted by Republicans.
“Cut the spending, cut the taxes, secure the border, defend the nation, we’re talking about being able to communicate some core conservative principles and American values that our Democrat opponents have opposed or simply don’t believe in,” says the House member. “We don’t need to reinvent the wheel or create something heavily influenced by pride of authorship and political consultants and message gurus.”
McCarthy’s efforts are largely seen as an offshoot of efforts by House GOP Whip Eric Cantor, whose track record with building national, conservative outreach efforts is spotty, at best. His 2009 National Council for a New America, which famously held its first meeting with “real America” in the Democrat bastion of Arlington, Virginia, an “Inside the Beltway” suburb of Washington D.C., was shut down last month.
Cantor, though has done a better job of helping to nurture candidates running for the House this election cycle. Through the House leadership’s “Young Guns” project, Cantor has recruited and developed an interesting slate of candidates, including Wisconsin’s Sean Duffy and Arkansas’s Tim Griffin, who will be rising stars if elected in the 2010 cycle.
Skeptical in Midwest| 6.1.10 @ 7:06AM
I imagine there were several attempts to get Stesak out of the race and probably several offers. What I don't believe is that the Clinton offer was the 'job offer' that Stesak referenced. Damage control in full swing, the White House has marched the Clinton offer out as a misdirection to let people draw the conclusion that they have revealed everything.
megapotamus | 6.1.10 @ 8:38AM
The Clinton angle here is a bit too convenient a development, for sure. This yarn has all the earmarks of a slapdash cover story concocted by a Confederacy of Dunces. First off, having Clinton involved so centrally in something so peripheral is pretty unlikely. This guy considers himself to be God's own breath so knocking off a primary contender for Snarlin' Arlen is way below his self-perceived pay grade. However if one wanted to insulate oneself from a breach of the relevant statute and forcing the appointment of an Independent Council he is the perfect vessel; eminently bribable, media savvy, a political Big Fish capable of hypnotising tame media and twisting the obviously fraudulent into the minimally plausible. Secondly is the astounding assertion that what Sestak was offered was an unpaid gig on an advisory board. For the statute it makes no difference, in the eyes of the law, anything of any value at all counts as consideration which means this was a quid pro quo and therefore constitutes bribery or a breach of the famous statute. You notice that Sestak has yet to corroborate that this was in fact the position in question, not that he will not, finally do so. While it makes no difference in the bright-line law, it is an easier popular pitch to dismiss the whole thing if the offer was not a "job" in the usual sense which makes this turn in the plot awfully pat. Add to this the now general knowledge that Sestak, if he maintained his House seat, would be ineligible for this appointment to a position CREATED by the Clinton Administration. Actually, if the cover story artists were aware of this fact it amounts to a bit of PR and legal genius. The unpaid position DOES amount to a thing of tangible value, no one can seriously contest that. However if what Sestak was offered was something he could not accept without serious material detriment; the loss of his House seat, then there is sound cause to assert that there was NOT consideration offered here as the promise implied was illusory. I am not of this school of thought however. Chicanery we can always expect from this crowd; genius never. The unpaid board seat has the stink of an improvised red-herring. Obviously neither the Obama Machine or the Clinton Rump State knew that sitting gub grubs were explicitly ineligible for this position. Rather those in the potential crosshairs of this scandal reached about for any serviceable lie and incompetently grabbed one that was immediately inoperative.
Larfs all around, if anyone were in a larfing mood.
I am not and as is often the case, the mood is soured by some players on our own side.
The gunslingers have circled; Mukasey and others wave off us trogs saying this is much ado about nothing. That may be a sound position for someone buttering their bread from the public trough but it demonstrates a distinct lack of the aggressive political instinct so desperately needed now. What, are you going to wait for some perfect scandal to launch your torpedoes? Sure, that probably will come, but why do the other guy's job for him? Attack, attack, attack! Attack early and attack often. Put a boot on the Democrats' throat and apply your full weight. If you do not have the stomach for that you are unfit for public office in the present circumstances. Just ponder, for a moment, what the Democrats would do under opposite circumstances.... what they HAVE done. For decades.
REMEMBER NOVEMBER!!| 6.1.10 @ 1:54PM
Mealy-Mouthed Mukasey worked for GWB--what else did you expect?
LogicalUS| 6.1.10 @ 7:58AM
Why are you fools treating this LIE as an "explanation" of the felony?
You people need to find a new line of work or become paid Democrat Party activists. Stop pretending to be real journalists or reporters.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 6.1.10 @ 8:06AM
The cozy relationship between players in the Obama White House, members of the U.S. Congress and their spouses, and insider influence peddling should be reviewed by a federal Grand Jury, to wit:
According to The Next Right, PR firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner "helped BP plan and evaluate its successful re-branding campaign, focusing the company's branding on energy solutions, including the development of solar and other renewable energy sources."
The firm's Stanley Greenberg is married to Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. There was something of a flap last year when it was pointed out that White house Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had been living in the couple's Capitol Hill townhouse, resulting in a lot of questions about whether or not this arrangement violated congressional ethical guidelines.
Further, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee paid Greenberg's firm some $500,000 in 2006 and 2008 while Emanuel was living with Greenberg, and Emanuel was even in charge of the DCCC during the 2006 election cycle.
And I'd be willing to bet that BP has paid Greenberg Quinlan Rosner a lot more than that. I doubt I'm the only one who thinks that BP's relationship with the White House might be a little too close for comfort.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer......z0pbPOdejr
Louis Jenkins| 6.1.10 @ 8:11AM
There is no doubt that there is something rotten in Denmark, or the District of Crimminals if you will. The Pretender n Chief crowd is in full political cover-up swing, and very little is being said about this episode on MSN. We can only hope!!
Plunkett| 6.1.10 @ 8:32AM
This used to be normal politics. Bill Clinton signed the law that made his behavior with Pala Jones actionable. Bill Clinton signed the law that made normal political behavior criminal. Amusing if these weren't such bad laws.
Anthony| 6.1.10 @ 9:02AM
It is hard to believe that Biden didn't open his big mouth and get in the middle of this criminal activity.It's not like him to be so circumspect. No matter, Specter died with his D boots on, and was undone by folks more loathesome than himself. Great karma Arlen.
At the very least, Obama, Emanuel and the former sociopath-in-chief, Bill Clinton are up to Monica's thong in this one.
Time for a special prosecutor. No justice, no peace!!!
Remember, its the seriousness of the charge, not the nature of the evidence!!!
REMEMBER NOVEMBER!!| 6.1.10 @ 1:56PM
We saw the videos, moron. Nice lie, try again.
Tim*| 6.1.10 @ 4:55PM
We ,Tea Party Rebels support Real Conservative Pat Toomey .
The Little Admiral , Sestak started this ,then plays cutsie , " I'm not tellin' who Da Big Bad Man was & what color lollipop he promised to give me ...." .
Now Sestak thinks he can walk away from it.
You Be Da Fool , Little Admiral Man !
dk| 7.1.10 @ 4:48AM
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