Sestak Affair Update

WH Explanation continues to unravel!

Ed Morrissey, writing at Hot Air does such a great job summarizing the latest points, I'll just direct readers to his post if you want the full story.

However, there are a couple of key points I want to touch on briefly.

1. When presented with questions about inconsistencies in the WH report on the Sestak affair, Press Spokesman Robert Gibbs has reverted to stonewalling. Sestak describes only one 60 second phone call from former President Clinton, yet the WH statement describes "efforts" (plural) occurring over the period of June and July 2009. Gibbs insisted the statement explained all this and when pressed by reporters reverted to "let me check"; a tactic the WH used for months to try and derail this story.

2. The WH now denies that Sestak was offered a post on the Presidential Advisory Board, a post to which he was ineligible by virtue of serving in Congress, yet they refuse to say what other position, or positions, might have been offered.

Reading the statement from the WH Counsel you get the impression of a very well crafted and lawerly document. But one which is more interesting for what it does not say. When you see the words "efforts" and "alternatives" a careful reader can't help but come away with more questions than answers.

Morrissey also points to another hard hitting piece by Democrat columnist Kirsten Powers who blasts Obama for engaging in "politics as usual" which directly contradicts the great appeal of his campaign. I remind readers of yesterday's post in which I quote Obama from 2007:

OBAMA: I believed that Americans of every political stripe were hungry for a new kind of politics, a politics that focused not just on how to win but why we should, a politics that focused on those values and ideals that we held in common as Americans; a politics that favored common sense over ideology, straight talk over spin.
...
But you can't at once argue that you're the master of a broken system in Washington and offer yourself as the person to change it.

White House conduct in the Sestak affair reveals most clearly that Obama is engaging in "politics as usual" of the worst kind where corrupt activity, then lying about it is the very antithesis of everything Obama claimed to stand for.

Kirsten Powers closes her piece by saying:

Charlie Cook, analyzing the current political environment, pointed out in a recent report that, "long-serving Democratic members of Congress identified as having 'gone Washington' are especially under threat." Presumably, the same holds for short-serving Democratic presidents.

Americans have only one option to clean up the mess: they can start by voting Democrats out of office in 2010 and then vote Obama out in 2012. After that, the real work of restoring our democracy may begin!