What Sestak originally said

From the Corner:

The Man Who Asked ‘The Question’ Speaks [Robert Costa]

Larry Kane, the host of a Comcast Network public-affairs show in Philadelphia, is the veteran reporter who first asked Rep. Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) back in February whether he was offered a “federal job” to get out of his Senate race against Sen. Arlen Specter (D., Pa.):

KANE: “Were you ever offered a federal job to get out of this race?”

SESTAK: “Yes.”

KANE: “Was it secretary of the Navy?”

SESTAK: “No comment”

Later Kane asks again, “Was there a job offered to you by the White House?” to which Sestak nods and replies “yes, someone offered it.”

Kane asks “It was big right?” Sestak replies, “Let me ‘no comment’ on it.”

“Was it high-ranking?” Kane asked. Sestak said yes.

[read the rest of the Corner item here.]

Yet now Sestak, agreeing with the White House official story line, says that all he was offered was an unpaid seat on some advisory council, which, furthermore, he would have been barred from taking so long as he remained in Congress. And we’re supposed to believe that the bare-knuckled Rahm Emanuel thought that such a meaningless “gift” would persuade Sestak to abandon his realistic chance of becoming a U.S. senator.

So Sestak looks at worst like a complete liar, and at best like an absolute moron who for months gave the public the impression that a “high-ranking … federal job” was offered to him, which sounds like something at least close to cabinet status, very possibly Secretary of the Navy (if it wasn’t Secretary of the Navy, why didn’t he just say “no” to that question instead of “no comment”?), when in reality all that was offered to him was some meaningless seat on an advisory board.

I would like to be able to say that Sestak’s conduct dooms him in the U.S. Senate race against Republican Patrick Toomey. But given Richard Blumenthal’s still high poll ratings in the Connecticut U.S. Senate race after the revelation of his lies about having served in Vietnam, such an outcome cannot be safely predicted.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 29, 2010 07:31 AM | Send