In the recent Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, Congressman Joe Sestak, a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, defeated Arlen Specter, a five-term member of the Senate who left the Republican Party in 2009 to become a Democrat.\u00a0 The rare Republican-to-Democrat switch was in response to polls indicating that Specter would lose to conservative Pat Toomey in the 2010 GOP primary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Specter\u2019s willingness to abandon the party that had repeatedly \u201cfallen on its sword\u201d for him for more than thirty years left Barack Obama and congressional Democrats salivating with glee\u2026 \u00a0and for good reason.\u00a0 Specter\u2019s defection represented far more than just one more vote on the Democrat side of the aisle.\u00a0 It represented the all-important 60th<\/sup> vote that would give them the filibuster-proof Senate they needed to force Obama\u2019s neo-fascist agenda through Congress.<\/p>\n Of course, the significance of his defection was not lost on Specter.\u00a0 One of the conditions he reportedly placed before the Democrats was his desire for a clear shot at the 2010 Democratic nomination.\u00a0 He did not want a primary opponent and, judging from the slavering obeisance of the Democratic hierarchy, from Obama on down, it seems clear he was given that assurance.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Most politicians understand that, while a switch from Democrat to Republican is almost always a \u201cwash\u201d (Democrats will hate and despise the defector, while Republicans will welcome him\/her as one might welcome a recovered alcoholic), almost no one respects a turncoat who switches from Republican to Democrat.\u00a0 In Specter\u2019s case, his defection only confirmed what Republicans had always suspected about him, while those in the Democratic Party would always question his motives\u2026 continuing to think of him as a \u201ccloset\u201d Republican. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n However, now that Sestak has won the primary and Specter can slither off to wherever it is that old liberals go when they are no longer a danger to society, Sestak has confirmed what he has been saying for months, which is that the White House offered him a top-level government job if he would agree not to run against Specter.\u00a0 In a February 2010 interview with Philadelphia newsman Larry Kane, Sestak was asked, \u201cWere you ever offered a job to get out of this race?\u201d\u00a0 Sestak, clearly a poor liar and completely caught off guard, answered, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n Kane asked, \u201cWas it Navy Secretary?\u201d\u00a0 Sestak replied, \u201cNo comment.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n Sestak said that he \u201cwas called many times,\u201d asking him to pull out.\u00a0 Then Kane asked, \u201cSo you were offered a job by someone in the White House?\u201d\u00a0 Sestak answered, \u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n If Sestak was offered a top position in the Obama Administration, it is all but certain that the proffer would have come through either Rahm Emanuel or David Axelrod.\u00a0 And since it is unthinkable that Obama would allow even his most trusted Chicago henchmen to bargain away a cabinet-level or a sub-cabinet-level position without his personal okay, there is no doubt that Obama himself approved the offer\u2026 and that equates to an impeachable offense.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Now it appears that Obama and Sestak finally have their stories straight\u2026 or so they thought.\u00a0 After months of Sestak claiming that he had been offered a top level job; after months of stone-walling by the White House; after an Oval Office meeting between Obama and Bill Clinton; and after a telephone call from the White House to Sestak\u2019s brother, briefing him on the details of the story that the Obama staff had concocted, we now have an admission by the White House that it was Clinton, the impeached former president, who transmitted the bribe offer to Sestak.\u00a0<\/p>\n As the story goes, Clinton reportedly reminded Sestak that a primary run against Specter would be a \u201ctough\u201d campaign, and suggested to him that an appointment to an \u201cunpaid\u201d position on a presidential advisory board might be available.\u00a0 With Obama, the crown prince of the most corrupt political machine in America in the role of \u201cfixer-in-chief,\u201d and Clinton, the poster boy for southern redneck politics serving as his \u201cbag man,\u201d the Sestak affair begins to read more and more like a Faulkner novel.\u00a0<\/p>\n But these questions will all be sorted out by the politicians and the courts, with a little help from the media and from the blogosphere.\u00a0 A far more interesting question is this: Why would a man who graduated second in his class at Annapolis, who rose through the ranks to become a three-star admiral, retire from military service to enter elective politics as a Democrat?<\/p>\n Given the vast moral, ethical, and cultural gulf between Democrats and Republicans, it seems totally inconsistent that intelligent and capable men such as Wesley Clarke and Joe Sestak\u2026 both of whom spent their careers in a profession where a core belief in duty, honor, and integrity governed their every thought and action\u2026 would then do a complete reversal, devoting their lives to a political party which embraces hypocrisy, moral flexibility, and ethical ambiguity. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Democrats are, individually and collectively, people who want something from<\/em> government, while Republicans are generally people who look to government as a force for protecting the lives and property of individuals and for creating an atmosphere in which individual citizens can achieve their highest potential.\u00a0 And whereas Republicans see politics as a means<\/em> to an end, the means<\/em> by which we establish government, Democrats tend to view politics as an end<\/em> in itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n So why would men such as Clarke and Sestak attach themselves to the Democrat Party?\u00a0 In a recent communication with readers I asked their opinion on that particular question. \u00a0The consensus was that, since Democrats are considered weak on national defense (many may even appear to despise the military), they find themselves desperately short on military credentials.\u00a0 Consequently, military men such as Clarke and Sestak, both highly ambitious, may feel that they will be a more valuable commodity to Democrats than to Republicans.<\/p>\n In reviewing Sestak\u2019s Navy career, we find that he had his ups and downs, politically.\u00a0 He was a two-star admiral in 2001 when then-Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Vern Clark, assigned him the task of anticipating what the Navy of the future might look like.\u00a0 Sestak, who served the Clinton Administration as a senior policy official at the National Security Council in the mid-90s, when the number of Navy ships was reduced from 550 to approximately 300, proposed further cuts in the size of the Navy, including an additional reduction of about 60 ships.<\/p>\n It was not an idea that was well received among the Navy officer corps.\u00a0 After being appointed Deputy Chief of Naval Operations in October 2004, Sestak held that position for just nine months.\u00a0 Then, in July 2005, following Admiral Mike Mullen\u2019s appointment as Chief of Naval Operations, one of his first acts was to dismiss Sestak.\u00a0 The reason, according to the Navy Times,<\/em> was a \u201cpoor command climate\u201d created by Sestak.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n After being released from the Navy, Sestak entered the 2006 campaign for Pennsylvania\u2019s 7th<\/sup> Congressional District seat against incumbent Curt Weldon, winning that normally Republican seat with 56.4% of the vote.\u00a0 However, as a member of Congress, Sestak continued to have a passion for \u201cdoing more with less.\u201d\u00a0 According to a 2007 article in The Hill<\/em>, a Capitol Hill newspaper, former Sestak staffers complained that they were \u201cexpected to work seven days a week, including holidays, often 14 hours each day, going for months without a day off.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n A Capitol Hill veteran recalled, \u201cThere is a revolving door in his office, not just because of the long hours, but also because he is not particularly nice or supportive of his staff\u2026\u00a0 I\u2019m sure he would say he is demanding, just as he was in the military, on both the giving and receiving end. \u00a0To staffers on the Hill, though, he is a guy to avoid unless you are desperate for a job.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, after just three years in Congress, Sestak finds himself embroiled in the battle of his life.\u00a0 Having left the strict regimentation of the Navy culture, immediately immersing himself in the rough-and-tumble Chicago\/Arkansas-style politics of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, he is fast \u00a0learning the truth of the old adage that, when one lies down with dogs, one gets up with fleas.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Anyone who believes that Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel would use an impeached former president to deliver a bribe offer to a retired Navy admiral, a current member of Congress, a man with his eyes on the U.S. Senate\u2026 offering him a dime-a-dozen appointment to a presidential board or commission, if only he would step aside in deference to Obama\u2019s chosen candidate\u2026 is smoking something much stronger than Marlboros.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In his written statement describing the Obama-Emanuel-Clinton-Sestak bribe offer, White House Counsel Robert Bauer said, \u201cThere have been numerous reported instances in the past when prior Administrations \u2013 both Democrat and Republican, and motivated by the same goals \u2013 discussed alternative paths to service for qualified individuals also considering campaigns for public office.\u00a0 Such discussions are fully consistent with the relevant law and ethical requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n Yes, Mr. Bauer, that may be true.\u00a0 But if such conversations did take place, the difference between then and now is that those individuals were smart enough not to admit to them publicly.<\/p>\n Instead of making up lame excuses for public consumption, Mr. Bauer should be telling Obama exactly what Richard Nixon\u2019s White House Counsel told him, which is: \u201cMr. President, there is a cancer growing on your presidency.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the recent Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, Congressman Joe Sestak, a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, defeated Arlen Specter, a five-term member of the Senate who left the Republican Party in 2009 to become a Democrat.\u00a0 The rare Republican-to-Democrat switch … Continue reading