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Friday, May 28, 2010

Joe Sestak and Occam's Razor

It’s the Friday before a Holiday weekend so it must be time for the White House to clear up some troubling events with a minor press release. This is how the Obama Administration has always dealt with such issues. After all, the number of people available for comment is scarce and the stories that will be written will hit the papers and television news over the weekend when relatively few people are paying attention.

A brief press release issued this morning by White House Council and long time Obama associate, Bob Bauer, to answer the growing question about Congressman Joe Sestak’s claim that a White House official offered him a job if he would agree to abandon his primary challenge against Senator Arlen Specter. Bauer’s statement said that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel used former President Bill Clinton as an intermediary to offer Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) an unpaid, executive branch advisory board position to “avoid a divisive Senate primary”. Bauer denied rumors that Sestak was offered a nomination as Navy secretary, and said all discussions were “consistent with the relevant law and ethical requirements.”

If this statement is correct and the White House acted in a manner “consistent with the relevant law and ethical requirements”, why did it take ten weeks and a media storm before the White House would respond to this controversy and why did the White House contact Congressman Sestak’s office as well as Sestak’s brother and campaign manager, Richard Sestak, before issuing this statement? According to Bob Bauer, the White House has “concluded that allegations of improper conduct rest on factual errors and lack a basis in the law". In other words…..we looked at the issue and everything is fine so just trust us. Really?

For the past ten weeks, Joe Sestak has held firm in his account of the exchange. He said not once, but a number of times that he had been contacted by a member of the Obama administration and he was offered a high-ranking administration job in exchange for dropping his primary bid. When asked about the rumors that he was offered the nomination for Secretary of the Navy, Sestak declined to elaborate, saying that doing so would be just getting into politics. Now that the White House has contacted Sestak and his campaign manager prior to today’s press release, Sestak’s account is now mysteriously saying something completely different.

Sestak released his own statement today saying "Last summer, I received a phone call from President Clinton. During the course of the conversation, he expressed concern over my prospects if I were to enter the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and the value of having me stay in the House of Representatives because of my military background," Sestak added. "He (President Clinton) said that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had spoken with him about my being on a Presidential Board while remaining in the House of Representatives. I said no."

"I told President Clinton that my only consideration in getting into the Senate race or not was whether it was the right thing to do for Pennsylvania working families and not any offer," he continued. "The former President said he knew I'd say that, and the conversation moved on to other subjects."

Was Sestak having a “Blumenthal moment”? If you recall, Democrat Dick Blumenthal who is running for the Connecticut Senate Seat has been accused of lying about his military service by hinting that he was a Viet Nam veteran. Blumenthal has since apologized and even though there are at least eight different occasions that this happened on film, he simply said he “misspoke” a few words that were taken out of context. The few words were silly things like “in Viet Nam” instead of “during Viet Nam” and “when we returned from Viet Nam” instead of “when my duty with a State-side reserve unit was over”. You know….easily mistaken comments. Could Sestak have simply misspoken a few words, confusing a “high ranking administration job” with a “non-paid appointment to an advisory board”? Perhaps he also confused Bill Clinton with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when he said he was contacted by a member of the Obama administration? Let’s face it….those high pressure jobs add years to your looks so maybe it was an honest mistake now that Hillary has added a few more wrinkles and some gray hair.

I am a huge fan of Occam’s razor. Occam’s razor (or Ockham's razer) is a theoretical principle proposed by 14th-century English logician, theologian and Franciscan friar William of Ockham that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem). In essence; that the simplest solution is usually the correct one. In this case, before we can arrive at the simplest solution we must identify the actual questions.

The obvious questions are:

1- Why did the White House refused to comment on this matter for ten weeks?

2- Why was Bill Clinton asked to “intercede” on behalf of the White House?

3- Why did Representative Sestak refuse to elaborate on the issue beyond his initial statement for the past ten weeks?

4- Why was Representative Sestak’s office and campaign manager contacted before the White House press release was issued?

5- Why has Representative Sestak’s account of the incident changed so drastically?

The simplest solution to all of these questions is that the press releases from both the White House and Joe Sestak are lies meant to cover up the true nature of the offer made to Joe Sestak and the identity of the person that made that offer. I’m sure the White House contacted Sestak after his initial statement and told him of the legal ramifications of his allegations. Sestak has nothing to gain by causing the White House embarrassment by further implicating them in what was obviously a criminal act. After all, Sestak is now the Democratic candidate for Specter’s Senate seat and will need the support of the White House and the DNC if he has any hopes of succeeding this November. That easily explains Sestak’s reluctance to elaborate on the offer that was made.

The dismissive non-response to the press’s questions issued by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tells me that they initially believed that this would all fade away after the primary, but to their surprise, it didn’t. Legal analysts were scouring US code looking for possible violations of law and the ramifications of those laws being violated meant someone was going to have to be sacrificed if there was any truth to Sestak’s story at all. Since this was fast becoming an issue that could affect the upcoming elections, fellow Democrats joined in the call for explanations and that could not be ignored. Some way had to be found to “help” Joe Sestak back away from his claims without damaging his race for the Senate but the real trick was that it had to be done in such a way that the White House was also clear of any wrong doing.

Ten weeks seems like a plausible amount of time for legal council to review the incident and issue recommendations. I'm sure those recommendations included the need to portray a series of events where someone that was not a member of the administration (Bill Clinton) would speak with Sestak only to suggest that his chances for success in the primary were limited so he should just drop out of that. “Oh by the way…Rahm Emmanuel would like to place you on a Presidential Advisory Board as a non-paid advisor while you retain your all important seat in the House of Representatives.” No government employee and no promise of power or money would skirt all of the problems. While that scenario certainly plays well with respect to the laws against using the power of a government office to interfere with a primary or general election, it does not sit well with the good Congressman’s previous and frequent statements.

As convoluted as this story is, it certainly does not play well with respect to Occam’s razor either. It makes no sense that the White House would risk the political damage of letting people believe that they were stone-walling the issue for ten weeks if Sestak’s original story of the attempted bribe were not true. It makes no sense that Joe Sestak would suddenly change his story so drastically on the day of the White House press release and risk his chances in the November election if he were not coached by the White House that this was the only acceptable way out of this for the both of them. It makes no sense that the White House would attempt to entice Sestak with a non-paid position on an advisory panel when the man was running for the United States Senate. Knowing that Sestak is not one of the wealthier members of Congress like Kerry or Kennedy, that wouldn’t fly at all so they further complicated the story by adding that he was told he could serve on that board and keep his seat in the House; something that Congressional rules currently prohibit. Curiously, Joe Sestak has been avoiding any direct interviews in the wake of the statement he released today that directly contradicts his previous assertions.

About the only part of the story that makes any sense is the Bill Clinton connection. Billy misses the limelight (not to mention access to female White House aides) so he doesn’t mind being drawn into something like this. Actually, Clinton was the perfect name to use in place of Rahm Emmanuel. He is not a member of the White House staff nor is he a paid employee of the Obama administration and if this ruse fails and an investigation is forced upon the White House, we all know that Bill Clinton has no problem lying to special prosecutors, Grand Juries or to the American People.

Paul

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