THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT

It appears we now know the official White House version of the Sestak affair.  They are apparently going to claim that Clinton delivered the offer of an unpaid advisory board position:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/05/exclusive_white_house_asked_cl_1.html

This is consistent with what the NYT is going to report.  It was apparently the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/05/what_about_the_job_offer.html

If this is accurate, then this will have very little impact on the Obama administration, other than some embarrassment.  However, it will be devastating to Sestak.  It makes him look like an arrogant idiot. (Seems about right!)

However, the real impact on this situation is that the Obama administration finally was forced to give a straight answer to a question rather than the vague non-specific answers for which they are famous.  Ultimately that could be the most damaging long term impact of this story.

There are also obvious conflicts between what Sestak said and this story.  This only describes one incident, involving President Clinton.  It will be interesting to see if this is the entire story.  This seems a little weak to me.  The Obama administration definitely wanted Sestak out of the race.  They were pretty desperate to keep Specter happy.   If this was their best effort at getting him out of the Senate race it is easy to see why it failed.  This story is probably true, but it may not be the entire story.  One thing is sure, there is a lot of scrambling going on.  The White House called Sestak’s brother, who is a lawyer, to discuss this with him.  It would be very interesting to learn what exactly was discussed.  This has the ugly odor of a cover-up.  I wonder if the main stream media will notice.  Right now, it will be important to learn exactly how Sestak responds.

This has the classic pattern of a cover-up.  Witness A refuses to give his side of the story until he knows exactly what Witness B said.  That is the way people act when they are trying to make sure they are both telling the same lie.  Perhaps the real question is not what Sestak was offered to drop out, but what he was offered to cover for the White House.  My guess is that Obama is about to make some very expensive fund raising trips to Pennsylvania.

TDM