Background: as you may recall, starting last year (and as recently as May 2010) Joe Sestak began to allege that the White House offered him an administration job in exchange for dropping out of Pennsylvania’s Senate Democratic primary.  These allegations were both surprising and unsurprising; unsurprising because such offers are made all the time (something similar was reported in Colorado’s Democratic Senate primary), but surprising in that it’s usually not admitted to so openly, given that such offers are also against the law.  Sestak never recanted and the administration claimed that he had garbled a perfectly-innocent and certainly not felonious invitation by President Clinton to have Sestak serve on a commission.  As Sestak had gone on to win the primary anyway, it seemed obvious that all parties involved on the Democratic side of things wanted to let the matter drop quietly.  As for Clinton… he never said anything at all on the subject, really.

Until now (see also here).  Bill Clinton’s now denying that he tried to get Sestak out of the race.

Now, we can only speculate as to why this is coming out now, but consider the following:

• Clinton and Obama have been having proxy fights in a number of Democratic primaries lately.
• The latest one of these was Colorado: Obama backed Bennett, Clinton backed Romanoff.
• Romanoff was the other Senate candidate who reported being offered a job by the White House in exchange for dropping out of the race.
• The Colorado primary was Tuesday.
• Clinton’s denial of being involved in the Sestak job offer took place on Wednesday.

So you tell me.  Or, more accurately, Clinton and Sestak can tell the Republicans on the House Oversight Committee, who are quite keen to find out just who is lying.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.