We all know about the flame wars and the pie-fights over Obama-lovers vs. Obama-haters. As one who is often called naïve for supposedly following blindly, I have to say I am rolling on the floor, laughing my fat ass off at this Sestak thing. I mean seriously, Sestak became a god or a darling, or whatever fond term you want to apply, of the left. He was the guy with integrity and chutzpa for taking on the incumbent who switched parties. I mean, hell, who would want Specter when we could get Sestak? Right? Right?
Well this isn’t a diary about his worth as a candidate or his view on policies or his ability to work for the people of Pennsylvania or America. I’m not here to hash out issue by issue why I think he’s good or bad.
What this diary is about is that something always smelled fishy about him to me and I was glad not to be a voter in PA for THAT primary. I still don’t know how I feel about the guy’s record or know how I think he’ll do. I had issues, good and bad, with Specter so this really was a wash of a contest for me.
But back to that fish smell. I never could put my finger on what exactly I responded negatively to about him. I didn’t follow his record in the House and I didn’t care enough to read up on his campaign website. But every damn time I saw him on Hardball or Ed Schultz my skin crawled. Why? What was it? The best I could come up with was that I didn’t like that he played the "woe is me" card right off the bat. Oh the President is unfairly supporting the DINO instead of me and that’s not nice. Poor me. Really, starting a campaign off as the kid who got picked last for a dodge ball team and stands there with his hands in his pockets, staring at the ground as he absent-mindedly moves the dirt with his shoes, is NOT my idea of a good candidate.
Then he mentioned the White House offered him a job to stay out of the race.
And then everyone forgot about that little nugget.
And then about a week or so ago, the right wing starts looking for a way to distract America from I don’t know – everything – and said, "Hey, the White House tried to interfere with an election. We demand answers". And then the White House is like, "What? We didn’t offer him a job, what the hell is going on here?" And then Sestak is like, "Yeah, they did, no comment". So then this blows up and not only is it spun that the White House did something wrong but then the White House is called stupid for not responding. Forget the fact that if they respond, they have to announce to the voters in Pennsylvania that their Democratic nominee for Senate is quite possibly a (whisper this) a liar.
So what is the White House to do? Get ahead of a non-story while highlighting that lame-ass "woe is me" start to a campaign strategy that now reveals that little boy who was chosen last was so jealous that he decided to (whisper) lie about the team captain. Now that lie (or whatever you want to call it) is biting that little boy in the ass.
So now I have a better understanding of what it was I didn’t like about Sestak. All along, since early in his campaign, he presented himself as unwanted while trying to pretend he was so important that the White House would contort themselves to have him because they wanted him so much. That is possibly, for me,why he came off as someone I couldn’t trust.
So back to the opening statement above: I am laughing my fat ass off at the people who wanted to put this on Obama and Rahm Emanuel and protect Sestak from accusations of (whisper) lying. One person told me that Sestak didn’t have a reputation for exaggeration or lying ergo the White House must be.
I am soooo tempted to ask, "How’s that Kool-Aid workin’ for ya?" But I won’t.
And just so that everyone is up to speed, here are the requisite links:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
(Yep, from February of this year. I told you everyone forgot about this nugget):
U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak says the White House offered him a federal job in an effort to persuade him not to mount a Democratic primary challenge against Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
During a taping Thursday of the Comcast Network's "Larry Kane: Voice of Reason" show, he said he was offered a high-ranking job but turned it down. His spokesman, Jonathon Dworkin, said Friday that Sestak stands by his comments.
Questioned after a stop at senior citizen center in Pittsburgh, Sestak said there was nothing to be gained by providing further details.
But let’s hear it from the man himself:
Before
http://abcnews.go.com/...
After
The White House statement (grabbed from LaurenMonica’s earlier diary http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
EDITED to include a link to the interview cited in the MSNBC piece (it only reinforces that Sestak made the claim early and vaguely and it was left to the WH to disprove a negative.):
http://www.larrykane.com/...
Oh, and now the Republicans want the FBI to investigate Clinton. Thanks Sestak! Thanks a fucking lot!