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June 01, 2010 06:21 PM UTC

Et tu, Romanoff?

  • 13 Comments
  • 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.

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13 thoughts on “Et tu, Romanoff?”

  1. Among many, many problems with this diary, you’ve simply got this wrong. Romanoff has never discussed or even “disclosed” “the offers.” The sources in the Post article were D.C. and Colorado Democrats who claimed to have some knowledge of what went on, not Romanoff.

    1. Are you saying the Post made it up?

      Did the sources make it up?

      Or Did Romanoff tell some people about it and he now wishes he did not?

      It didn’t come from the White House.

  2. I don’t think Romanoff would be as strong a general candidate as Bennet, but not because of this hoo-ha.

    Even the Denver Post article from last September is pretty clear that Romanoff said nothing about anything to anyone.

    http://www.denverpost.com/ci_1…

    The Post (Riley) goes out of the way to not name sources just Colorado D’s.   Though I found it funny that Colorado D”s were also credited with saying that AR would not be tempted by other jobs and even Romanoff said the only job he was focused on was Senate.  Which, of course, we now know was not 100% accurate.

  3. Republicans? I’m failing to understand the meaning of the reference in your diary title. Or did you just think it sounded cool?

    1. Caesar is the American People betrayed by those who would represent them were it not for better job offers– or something?

      Caesar is Dick Wadhams who has secretly been close to Romanoff for years, leaning on him as a trusted adviser in Colorado politics? It wounds Dick to learn of these goings on from the media and not personally from Andrew, his Number One, whom he meets every wednesday on that bench on the water in LoDo.  

      Caesar is Obama, who had Sestak and Romanoff and so many other of his minions swear oaths never to speak or even hint about the Chicago-style smoke-filled-room wheeling and dealing Obama has introduced to formerly transparent Washington politics?

  4. So what if he got offered a job? It happens all the time, and if he’d gotten a federal appointment, he would’ve been disqualified as a candidate under the Hatch Act, because federal employees can’t be candidates for office.

      1. First of all, it’s affect, not effect. 🙂

        Second, um, no it’s not against the law to affect an election by offering something of value. Seriously, not even kidding.

        Here’s Norm Ornstein, for example:

        If what the Obama administration did was impeachable, then Rep. Issa might want to consider retroactive impeachment action against Ronald Reagan, whose White House directly suggested to S.I. Hayakawa that he would get an administration position if he would stay out of the Republican primary for Senate in California; or call for an investigation and special prosecutor of the Bush White House for discussing a Cabinet post with Democratic Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska to clear the field for their preferred Republican candidate Mike Johanns in 2006. At the same time, Issa might want to call for expulsion of his Senate colleague Judd Gregg, who insisted before he accepted the post of Commerce Secretary in the Obama administration that there be a guarantee that his successor, appointed by a Democratic governor, be a Republican.

        So, yeah. I’m just not seeing the epic violation of law that rises to the level of jaywalking, let alone Watergate.

  5. I gotta know…are you a “google monkey”? I’ve heard of you guys and you’re really cool. You get paid to write nutty shit on blogs for political campaigns, huh? Wow, I wish I could get a job as an anonymous political hit-man.

    Should I use a capital letter on “Google monkey”?…just asking…anyway.

    So, do you work for Donald Trump …or one of those other important guys on TV? Or what? I like g(G)oogle.

    Your fan,

    Duke

    1. I am not familiar with the term “google monkey”, I am not getting paid to blog and I don’t work for any campaign.  That said, if you think that the White House’s attempt to clear the field for their boy, Bennet is going away because Romanoff has belatedly clamed up, I think you are mistaken.  

      1. often mistaken, H-man…that would not be news. I don’t care if the White House gets its’ figurative tit in a wringer over this, BTW.

        I am a Romanoff supporter. When the original deal was made to appoint Bennet, I was as outraged as any. Bennet is our Senator on the basis of one vote…Ritters. Other than that, I don’t know of any other election campaign Bennet has run. And no, this is NOT THE REASON I support Andrew. That information can be found in numerous other threads.

        I have been watching, along with the rest of the politically inclined, as the campaign has evolved into a contest between the well-monied, well connected insider and the popular populist. It is an interesting situation, even if you don’t have a horse in the race.

        By the way, I was just yanking your chain in my previous post. Don’t take it too seriously.   🙂

         

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