Sestak Still Hasn't Denied He Was Offered Navy Job

May 28th, 2010 8:31 PM

Has it dawned on the MSM that the only thing that would have carried any weight today would have been Joe Sestak unequivocally stating that he wasn't offered the Sec. of the Navy job?  He didn't.  Sure, Pres. Obama's mouthpiece issued a denial.  But if there was any way under heaven that the White House could have strong-armed Sestak into flatly stating that no one offered him the Navy post, it would have happened. It didn't.

Instead, all Sestak says is that Pres. Clinton offered him some measly advisory board position, which he rejected.  And indeed, Sestak tells a reporter that Clinton told him that "Rahm Emanuel" had mentioned the possibility of an advisory board position.  So we know Emanuel was in the mix. Sestak is quoted as saying that he only had "one phone call" with Pres. Clinton.  But he never said he didn't subsequently hear from Emanuel or some other senior Obama aide.

Sestak's statement in no way excludes the possibility that Emanuel or someone else in the White House subsequently sweetened the deal with the Secretary of the Navy job offer.  

On today's Hardball, Andrea Mitchell dismissed the notion that there Clinton might have gone back to Sestak with a better offer: "I doubt that very much" she opined. Mitchell could be right: it could be hard to turn a former president into a bag man on such a seedy level.  But when will someone in the media put the simple question to Sestak: OK, so you turned down Clinton's advisory board offer.  Did he or anyone else ever offer you another job?