Sestak: Did Obama commit a crime?

The Sestak scandal has “boiled over,” said Rich Lowry in the New York Post. Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak said months ago that the White House tried to keep him from challenging Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary by offering him a job. Sestak reiterated the claim after defeating Specter. No one accepted the White House’s explanation, which amounted to “trust us, nothing untoward happened.” So last week White House Counsel Robert Bauer released an “exquisitely crafted exculpatory document” claiming that Bill Clinton was sent to talk Sestak out of running, in return for an uncompensated seat on a presidential advisory board. They’ve got to be kidding, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. “The congressman was supposed to give up his reasonable chance at a U.S. Senate seat” for an honorary appointment? Not surprisingly, Rep. Darrell Issa and other Republicans are now demanding an investigation, saying it’s time to find out if President Obama committed an impeachable offense by trying to bribe Sestak not to run.

What took them so long? said Jonathan Bernstein in WashingtonPost.com. I thought the “loons” on the Right who view Obama as the Antichrist would have tried to impeach him months ago for some imagined crime. It will be hard for them to inflate the Sestak kerfuffle into an impeachable offense, “but I don’t see that as a major impediment.” The Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh talk show brigade will be “tripping over each other to wear the crown of the Host Who Brought Down the socialist gangster president.” And if they fail this time, you can bet Republicans will impeach Obama for something—anything—if they win control of the House this fall.

If the White House is telling the truth, no crime was committed, said The Seattle Times. But what it did was nonetheless wrong. By trying to convince a viable candidate to drop out, the White House “showed little respect to the Democratic voters of Pennsylvania” and tried to deny them an alternative to the turncoat Specter. Obama may have little to fear legally, said Kirsten Powers in the New York Post, but this is a political black eye, especially during a time of rising anti-Washington sentiment. Yes, backroom deals have a long history in politics, but “Obama promised to change Washington’s culture.” Instead, he’s been exposed as just another self-serving, deal-cutting Washington pol. “Change indeed.”

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