Did President Barack Obama offer Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak, now the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, a high position in our federal government in exchange for not running against Arlen Specter?
Sestak didn’t take the deal, if indeed one was offered. But months ago, Sestak said, unequivocally, that a job had been offered. He has since clammed up, especially after defeating Specter last Tuesday.
Back in February, a White House spokesman denied any such deal was proffered. But, Sunday, on CBS’s Face the Nation, chief White House spokesman Robert Gibb’s declared, “I’m not going to get into it, but people who have looked into it assure me the conversations were not inappropriate in any way.”
A ringing defense! And after such an exhaustive search for the truth . . .
On ABC’s This Week, George Will offered context. “Politics is a transactional business,” he said, and offered his judgement: “I don’t see a thing wrong with it.”
Yes, well, Will has a point. Many businesses are “transactional” — banking comes first to mind. But there are honest transactions . . . and less-than-honest ones. I wouldn’t want the president of my bank hiring or promoting his girlfriend to, say, prevent her from finking on him to his wife.
Government employees have jobs to do — jobs that carry out legitimate governmental functions. If not, those jobs shouldn’t exist. If so, they should be staffed on the basis of merit, not political expediency.
I thought that was very simple, basic common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
9 replies on “Anything Wrong With That?”
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Mr. Jacobs, your article about the Government job offered (or not offered, which is it?) to Sestak is right on. Govt jobs should be filled based on qualifications, not to keep some politician employed. I disagree with most of Sestak’ views, and I’m not sure he will be any better than Specter, but at least he is new. Keep up the good work, Paul. I read your Common Sense and your Townhall columns.
“inappropriate”-
euphamism for “recorded” or “videoed”
So its not illegal to bribe someone with a job with government to change an election result ????? Sounds illegal to me, better read up on what is legal and illegal. Of course for the liberal/marxist Democraps in congress there is no such thing as illegal !!!!!!!!
Unfortunately, with the group of politicians in power now, “merit” has been redefined to mean “someone who agrees with my agenda”. Just as personal wealth or other assets have been rendered to be something that can be seized permanently or temporarily used by the state under a variety of pretexts. It’s all perfectly fine under the new code of morality instituted by these people so long as they are in charge and have the superior “merit”.
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Do you see a parallel here? Isn’t this the same kind of thing that got Blogoyavich kicked out of office? Obviously this must the way they do things in Chicago and Illinois!
George Will hasn’t thought this thru. Say I offered someone a job with a budget and a nice salary, but only if they said they’d send government contracts to my firm, or my political contributors firm. Isn’t this theft of taxpayer money?