June 01, 2010 06:21 PM UTC

Et tu, Romanoff?

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• by: H-man

Last Friday, shortly before the three day Memorial Day weekend, the White House issued a rather disingenuous explanation of the Sestak affair.  Essentially they would have you believe that Rahm Emanuel  sent convicted perjurer Bill Clinton to get a sitting congressman to bow out of a Senate primary by offering him a non-paid position on a commission on which he could not by the terms of the commission, serve.  The whitewash being offered up begets more questions than it answers. Sestak has indicated since the beginning that it was a job offer and that doesn’t seem like very much of a job.

In Colorado, the White House’s attempt to clear the field for their favored Sycophant, the never elected, always appointed, Michael Bennet seems to follow the same script.  The Denver Post, last September reported:

Jim Messina, President Barack Obama’s deputy chief of staff and a storied fixer in the White House political shop, suggested a place for Romanoff might be found in the administration and offered specific suggestions, according to several sources who described the communication to The Denver Post.

Romanoff turned down the overture, which included mention of a job at USAID, the foreign aid agency, sources said.

Unlike Sestak, Romanoff has tried to stay away from talking about his conversation with Jim Messina, since the article appeared.  At this point his attempts to make this go away border on the absurd.  Now Romanoff will not answer why he will not answer what jobs he was offered, if he was offered any.

It seems to me that we do not need to listen to any more nonsense about the Romanoff “job offers”. There are only a few ways this could have played out.

1. Was Romanoff offered a job in the administration shortly before he announced?  If he was not, does anybody believe that the source of the story was Jim Messina?  Does the White House really want to be spreading false rumors of the extent of its sleaze?  So the answer for me is, if he was not offered the jobs that several sources told the Denver Post about and which had to emanate from him, he should withdraw from the race because he is a liar.

2. If Romanoff was offered a job, but refuses to disclose the details you have to ask yourself why.  To me there are only two possibilities.  One, that he knows he is going to lose this race and he wants to remain in the good graces of the White House so he can later get a job, or two that he is afraid to stand up to the White House and speak the truth for some other reason.  Either of these alternatives to me disqualifies him as a Senator.  Standing up for the truth is a predicator of the ability to stand up at all.  Such a person would not be a strong voice for Colorado.

3. Romanoff belatedly comes clean and reveals the White House for at the least being sleazy and possibly to the extent of having broken the law.  If he does, Bennet’s protectors are revealed for what they are and the sleaze reflects on Bennet as well.

None of these options are particularly attractive, but Romanoff brought them on himself by disclosing the offers.  The ball is in Romanoff’s court.  Unless he comes clean, he is toast.  If he now comes clean, he needs to explain where his backbone has been in hiding.