WH had Clinton try to ease Sestak out of Pa. race
PHILIP ELLIOTT - Associated Press Writer (AP)
Originally published 11:23 a.m., May 28, 2010
Updated 02:43 p.m., May 28, 2010
Updated 02:43 p.m., May 28, 2010
WASHINGTON (AP) — Forced to disclose backstage political bargaining, President Barack Obama's embarrassed White House acknowledged on Friday it had enlisted Bill Clinton to try to ease Rep. Joe Sestak out of Pennsylvania's Senate primary with a job offer.
Nothing wrong with that, the White House said. Oh yes there was, Republicans countered.
The administration admission — it said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had asked the former president to call Sestak — left many questions unanswered, and it seemed unlikely the issue had been put to rest. For Obama, the revelations called into question his repeated promises to run an open government that was above back room deals. And for Sestak, they raised questions why he ever brought up the offer — a 60-second conversation, he said Friday — in the first place.
"I wasn't interested, and that was the bottom line," Sestak said on the steps of the Capitol.
Seeking to quiet the clamor over a possible political trade, the White House released a report describing the offer that was intended to clear a path for Sen. Arlen Specter to win the Democratic nomination. Sestak stayed in the race and eventually defeated Specter to become the Democratic nominee, ending Specter's 30-year Senate tenure.
After a week of silence, Sestak answered reporters' questions on last summer's offer.
He said he cut Clinton short after hearing only a few words about a possible post on a presidential board and said the former president immediately dropped the subject during a phone call.
"There was nothing wrong that was done," Sestak said.
White House Counsel Robert Bauer rendered his own verdict in a two-page report that said there was no improper conduct in the offer. No one in the administration discussed the offer with Sestak, Bauer said. The report did not say what, if any, contacts or promises the White House had with Specter on the matter. It also did not reveal whether Obama was aware of Clinton's role.
The report didn't impress Republicans.
Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House oversight committee who unsuccessfully had sought a Department of Justice investigation, said Obama had become a part of the Washington culture he decried.
"It's pretty clear from the White House statement that they intended to get him out of the race by offering him a position, and that's illegal and it's unethical," Issa said just moments after Sestak spoke.
Said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele: "The memo frankly raises more questions: What was Bill Clinton authorized to offer? Did President Obama sign off on this conversation before it took place?"
"Now more than ever it is clear that this White House is not capable of policing itself and needs to open itself to an independent investigation."
Sestak, who had said a job was offered but had provided no details, acknowledged Friday that he had had the conversation with Clinton. He said the former president told him he should stay in the U.S. House and perhaps join a presidential board, either involving intelligence or defense matters to use his background as a Navy officer.
Specter declined to comment. Clinton, campaigning in Little Rock, Ark., for Sen. Blanche Lincoln's re-election bid, ignored reporters' shouted questions.
The report said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel enlisted Clinton's help as a go-between with Sestak. Clinton agreed to raise the offer of a seat on a presidential advisory board or another executive board if Sestak dropped his bid, "which would avoid a divisive Senate primary," the report said.
Under the proposed arrangement, Sestak would have been able to remain in the House while serving on a board. It was not clear why the White House — which has the power to offer Cabinet posts and sought-after embassy jobs — believed Sestak would be interested in just an advisory position.
Sestak defeated the five-term Specter, who had switched from Republican to Democrat last year at the White House's urging, in the May 18 Democratic primary.
Emanuel and Sestak both worked in the White House when Clinton was president in the 1990s, and both remain close with their former boss. Sestak was a supporter of Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her 2008 presidential bid.
Bauer, in the White House report, argued that previous Democratic and Republican administrations, "motivated by the same goals, discussed alternative paths to service for qualified individuals also considering campaigns for public office." The report said such actions aren't illegal nor unethical.
For weeks, the White House had insisted officials did not behave inappropriately but had declined to elaborate. But after Sestak won the nomination, Republicans renewed their questions of the administration and White House lawyers prepared to release a report they had been compiling for months.
At a White House news conference on Thursday, Obama told reporters a full accounting would be forthcoming.
"I can assure the public that nothing improper took place," he said.
The accounting came Friday, as the public turned its attention to the Memorial Day weekend instead of politics. Both parties often release unfavorable information during times when many Americans are focused elsewhere.
Two top Democrats — party chief Tim Kaine and Dick Durbin of Illinois, the party's second-ranking leader in the Senate — said during the week that the White House and Sestak needed to address the questions. So, too, did Sestak's Republican challenger in Pennsylvania, former Rep. Pat Toomey.
___
Associated Press writers Charles Babington in Washington and Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock contributed to this report.
Nothing wrong with that, the White House said. Oh yes there was, Republicans countered.
The administration admission — it said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had asked the former president to call Sestak — left many questions unanswered, and it seemed unlikely the issue had been put to rest. For Obama, the revelations called into question his repeated promises to run an open government that was above back room deals. And for Sestak, they raised questions why he ever brought up the offer — a 60-second conversation, he said Friday — in the first place.
"I wasn't interested, and that was the bottom line," Sestak said on the steps of the Capitol.
Seeking to quiet the clamor over a possible political trade, the White House released a report describing the offer that was intended to clear a path for Sen. Arlen Specter to win the Democratic nomination. Sestak stayed in the race and eventually defeated Specter to become the Democratic nominee, ending Specter's 30-year Senate tenure.
After a week of silence, Sestak answered reporters' questions on last summer's offer.
He said he cut Clinton short after hearing only a few words about a possible post on a presidential board and said the former president immediately dropped the subject during a phone call.
"There was nothing wrong that was done," Sestak said.
White House Counsel Robert Bauer rendered his own verdict in a two-page report that said there was no improper conduct in the offer. No one in the administration discussed the offer with Sestak, Bauer said. The report did not say what, if any, contacts or promises the White House had with Specter on the matter. It also did not reveal whether Obama was aware of Clinton's role.
The report didn't impress Republicans.
Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House oversight committee who unsuccessfully had sought a Department of Justice investigation, said Obama had become a part of the Washington culture he decried.
"It's pretty clear from the White House statement that they intended to get him out of the race by offering him a position, and that's illegal and it's unethical," Issa said just moments after Sestak spoke.
Said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele: "The memo frankly raises more questions: What was Bill Clinton authorized to offer? Did President Obama sign off on this conversation before it took place?"
"Now more than ever it is clear that this White House is not capable of policing itself and needs to open itself to an independent investigation."
Sestak, who had said a job was offered but had provided no details, acknowledged Friday that he had had the conversation with Clinton. He said the former president told him he should stay in the U.S. House and perhaps join a presidential board, either involving intelligence or defense matters to use his background as a Navy officer.
Specter declined to comment. Clinton, campaigning in Little Rock, Ark., for Sen. Blanche Lincoln's re-election bid, ignored reporters' shouted questions.
The report said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel enlisted Clinton's help as a go-between with Sestak. Clinton agreed to raise the offer of a seat on a presidential advisory board or another executive board if Sestak dropped his bid, "which would avoid a divisive Senate primary," the report said.
Under the proposed arrangement, Sestak would have been able to remain in the House while serving on a board. It was not clear why the White House — which has the power to offer Cabinet posts and sought-after embassy jobs — believed Sestak would be interested in just an advisory position.
Sestak defeated the five-term Specter, who had switched from Republican to Democrat last year at the White House's urging, in the May 18 Democratic primary.
Emanuel and Sestak both worked in the White House when Clinton was president in the 1990s, and both remain close with their former boss. Sestak was a supporter of Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her 2008 presidential bid.
Bauer, in the White House report, argued that previous Democratic and Republican administrations, "motivated by the same goals, discussed alternative paths to service for qualified individuals also considering campaigns for public office." The report said such actions aren't illegal nor unethical.
For weeks, the White House had insisted officials did not behave inappropriately but had declined to elaborate. But after Sestak won the nomination, Republicans renewed their questions of the administration and White House lawyers prepared to release a report they had been compiling for months.
At a White House news conference on Thursday, Obama told reporters a full accounting would be forthcoming.
"I can assure the public that nothing improper took place," he said.
The accounting came Friday, as the public turned its attention to the Memorial Day weekend instead of politics. Both parties often release unfavorable information during times when many Americans are focused elsewhere.
Two top Democrats — party chief Tim Kaine and Dick Durbin of Illinois, the party's second-ranking leader in the Senate — said during the week that the White House and Sestak needed to address the questions. So, too, did Sestak's Republican challenger in Pennsylvania, former Rep. Pat Toomey.
___
Associated Press writers Charles Babington in Washington and Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock contributed to this report.
Current Position: Chief of Staff1 to President Barack Obama (since November 2008)
Boss: President Barack Obama2
Credit: Melina Mara/TWP 
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68Footnotes
1.Wallsten, Peter, Wall Street Journal, "Chief of Staff Draws Fire From Left as Obama Falters16," Jan. 26, 2010
2.Milbank, Dana, The Washington Post, "Why Obama Needs Rahm at the Top17," Feb. 21, 2010
3.Loson, Laura M., “White House externs; Two turns of the revolving door,”22 The New York Times, Feb. 3, 1999
4.Pierre, Robert E., “From Front Line to Front Stoop; Clinton Ex-Aide Pounds Pavement in Bid for House Seat,” The Washington Post, March 22, 2002
5.Loson, Laura M., “White House externs; Two turns of the revolving door,”25 The New York Times, Feb. 3, 1999
6."Roll Call’s 50 Richest," Roll Call, Sept. 22, 2008
7.Zeleny, Jeff, “Emanuel get boost from ex-boss; Candidate raises funds at Clintons’” Chicago Tribune, June 19, 2002
8.Huse, Carl, “Clinton aide heads to House, with waves preceding him,”31 The New York Times, Aug. 23, 2002
9.Bendavid, Naftali, “The House that Rahm built,”36 Chicago Tribune, Nov. 12, 2006
10.Easton, Nina, “Rahm Emanuel, pitbull politician,”37 Fortune, Sept. 25, 2006
11.Bendavid, Naftali, “The House that Rahm built,”39 Chicago Tribune, Nov. 12, 2006
12.Bresnahan, John, “What does Rahm want?,”41 Politico, July 16, 2008
13.Biographical and career data taken from Almanac of American Politics, 2008 edition
14.Weisman, Jonathan, Bendavid, Naftali and Simpson, Cam, "Emanuel, Blagojevich aides discussed Senate seat,"43 The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 15, 2008
15.McCormich, John, "'Congressman A': Rahm Emanuel,"45 Chicago Tribune, April 3, 2009
16.Wallsten, Peter, Wall Street Journal, "Chief of Staff Draws Fire From Left as Obama Falters47," Jan. 26, 2010
17.Haygood, Wil, “Democratic ‘Golden Boy’ rahm Emanuel, Basking in the glow of victory,”50 The Washington Post, Nov. 9, 2006
18.Bendavid, Naftali, “The House that Rahm built,”51 Chicago Tribune, Nov. 12, 2006
19.Zahn, Paula, Interview with Rahm Emanuel and Mark Foley55, CNN
20.Tankersley, Jim, “Dogged bailout backer; Rahm Emanuel takes lead role for Democrats,”56 Chicago Tribune, Oct. 3, 2008
21.Wallsten, Peter, Wall Street Journal, "Chief of Staff Draws Fire From Left as Obama Falters59," Jan. 26, 2010
22.Murray, Shailagh and Lori Montgomery, The Washington Post, "House Passes Health-Care Reform Bill without Republican Votes,60" March 22, 2010
23.Babington, Charles, “House votes to expand insurance for kids,”63 Associated Press via USA Today, Sept. 26, 2007
24.Pear, Robert, “Medicare drug benefit plan is proposed by 2 Democrats,”64 The New York Times, April 2, 2003
Progressives’ anger grows against White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel
A remarkable thing is happening to Rahm Emanuel: he is losing his aura of invincibility.
A year ago, Emanuel was the untouchable attack dog for a president on top of the world.
Now, according to some liberal critics, he is “a cowardly, petty, small-minded thug.”
Discontent among liberal progressives against President Obama’s chief of staff has been bubbling for some time. It’s now nearing a boiling point.
And the narrative emerging from those who hate Emanuel is far different from the one that has been built up over the last few years about the political knife fighter from Chicago.
“The beltway crowd thinks of him as rough and tumble,” said a well-placed leader in the netroots community.
“Progressives see him as weak-kneed because they don’t think he’s fighting for them on anything really.”
Few in the Obama administration appeared more formidable than Emanuel did a year ago as the new president entered the White House. He was recruited out of his congressional leadership position by Obama, who wanted only Emanuel to run his White House.
He was regarded as a fearsome political force, the enforcer and implementer of the Obama agenda, as “Rahmbo.” Profiles were written conveying that though Emanuel had matured somewhat since his somewhat wilder days in the Clinton White House, he still had the edge that made him so feared by many.
The story of Emanuel in 1992, after Bill Clinton was elected president, driving a steak knife into a table and shouting, “Dead!” over and over as he named off political enemies, was told again and again.
That story is now being reinterpreted by the ascendant liberal grassroots, which has grown disillusioned with the Obama White House.
“You’re not a tough guy if your first thought upon assuming the power of the presidency is to take it and use it to punish your enemies. You’re a cowardly, petty, small-minded thug,” said Jane Hamsher, founder of Firedoglake, a liberal blog that has been one of the most vocal critics of the health-care bill.
“I’m sure Rahm spreads it around to promote the myth of himself as a rebel and a fighter, but most people experience ‘that guy’ as a brown-nose for power willing to bully on behalf of the status quo,” Hamsher said in an e-mail to the Daily Caller.
Progressives blame Emanuel for most of the compromises they most detest: deals with drug and insurance companies on health-care reform, the continuation of many Bush-era counterterrorism measures, pushing many issues most important to the gay rights community to the back burner and working closely with Wall Street to keep large firms from failing.
A senior White House official defended Emanuel in an e-mail: “He has led this administration in accomplishing a series of important progressive achievements that languished for years before President Obama was elected: expanding SCHIP, tobacco regulation, credit card reforms, banning torture, the Ledbetter Equal Pay Act.”
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who took the reins of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from Emanuel in 2008, also defended his former House leadership colleague.
“Rahm Emanuel’s blend of policy smarts and political acumen helped Democrats win the House in 2006,” Van Hollen said in a statement. “It is important to have a seasoned hand on deck to assist the President in navigating choppy political waters.”
The White House official added: “Rahm is not an ideologue. He is a pragmatist.”
That is exactly why many on the left don’t like Rahm. They think he does not care much, if at all, for their ideological and policy goals. He is, they say, driven by one thing: power.
“People see Rahm as somebody who just wants to get something done, he’s willing to get something done at any cost,” said a senior Democratic political operative.
And progressives feel that Rahm has disrespected them and taken their support for granted.
“He comes from the Clinton school of fighting, which is scream at liberals, deal with Republicans,” said a netroots think tanker.
Most disconcerting for many on the left is their concern that Emanuel’s behavior may, in fact, be supported by the president they helped elect.
“The tough question for people like us is to what extent is he reflecting the preferences of his boss.”
