As further proof that whatever President Obama touches turns into a huge failure, even the administration’s recent attempts at Chicago style politics have failed miserably. They are so inept, partially due to unmitigated gall, that even the one thing in which the administration is well-versed, the Chicago Way, turns into another strike against them. You would think that they’d have learned the “it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up” deal by now, but in a breathtaking display of incompetence, they’ve shown that they have not.

When President Obama was finally asked, during his first press conference in over 300 days, about Rep. Joe Sestak’s claim that he was offered a job to drop out of the PA primary, Obama had no answer. Except to say that an “official statement” would be coming shortly, basically saying “Dude, we haven’t come up with a plausible lie yet. Can’t I just finish my fabrication?”

The official statement came Friday afternoon. As Joe Klein at NewsReal wrote:

On the Friday before a long holiday weekend, the White House issued a statement admitting that President Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel arranged for former President Bill Clinton to ask Representative Joe Sestak if he would consider dropping out of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary.  Mention was made in their discussion of Sestak’s possible appointment to a prominent, but unpaid, government advisory position if he did decide to drop out.

How convenient! It was just good old Bubba. Nothing to see here, move along. We are to believe that President Clinton was the go-between? I’m sorry, but I’d run in the opposite direction if Bill Clinton started talking to me about any kind of “job.”  Especially if he had cigar in hand.

More importantly, Byron York reports that Sestak was ineligible for the job that Clinton allegedly offered him (via Allahpundit).

As a sitting member of Congress, Sestak was not eligible for the job.  And since the White House intended for Sestak to remain in his House seat, he would not have been eligible for the board after this November’s elections, provided he was re-elected to the House.

Huh. Doesn’t compute, does it? Either the entire story is a total fabrication by the White House or it wasn’t a job offer, but rather a threat.  Since being on the board would require that Sestak no longer be in Congress, it is like a figurative knee capping by the husband of the Secretary of State. You play nice or else.

While the press neglected to report on the above for the most part, at least the House Judiciary Committee members have noticed:

In addition, a spokesman for Rep. Lamar Smith, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, who on Friday asked FBI director Robert Mueller to investigate the Sestak matter, says:

“This is just another strike against the Administration’s story. Why bring in a big gun, like former President Clinton, to offer a meager job to Sestak that he wasn’t even eligible to accept? Either the administration is completely incompetent or there is a cover up. That’s why I’ve called for the FBI to get involved. We’re clearly not going to get a straight story from Sestak or the White House without an official investigation.”

I only have one problem with that. Why can’t it be both? Incompetence and cover-ups are not mutually exclusive. In fact, we are now seeing that they seem to happen often in an administration full of unwarranted hubris.

Chicago politics and mind-boggling incompetence both coming home to roost.

—–

(Cross-posted from NewsReal)