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Unintelligent Design


Valin

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NY Times:

5/28/10

There doesn’t seem to be anything terribly unethical about the White House offer of an unpaid advisory position to Joe Sestak if he would bow out of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, in which he later defeated Senator Arlen Specter. There does, however, seem to be something strikingly unintelligent about it.

Why would the White House, using former President Bill Clinton as its agent, offer Mr. Sestak a job on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board for which he was ineligible as a sitting House member? (It takes about 30 seconds to Google those rules, approved in 1993 by President Clinton himself.)

Why would President Obama’s White House waffle and obfuscate about the matter for three months, allowing Republicans and the conservative blogosphere to hyperinflate it into the grave scandal it turned out, on Friday, not to be?

Why, finally, can’t the White House avoid such unforced errors and get its political act together? (And we haven’t even brought up the fact that William Jefferson Clinton does nothing quietly.)

(Snip)

But when the White House does get involved, it too often flails ham-handedly and winds up bruising only itself. Its attempt last year to get Gov. David Paterson of New York not to run for re-election looked like a brass-knuckled shove out the door, angering black leaders and many voters. The result: the angry governor refused for months to bow out.

The offer to Mr. Sestak, the White House said on Friday in a statement, was arranged by Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff and one of the most experienced political hands in Washington. Mr. Clinton, who is Mr. Emanuel’s old boss, said he knew Mr. Sestak would never take the offer, Mr. Sestak said on Friday. Next time, Mr. Emanuel should show the same sense and spare his current boss the embarrassment.
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