Something For Nothin'

When I put the pieces together it seems as though the Obama administration has hit a new depth to their incompetency.

Yes, his foreign policies are incompetent. Yes, his domestic policies are incompetent. And yes, his crisis reactions are profoundly incompetent.

But now it appears that his alleged "job offers" are incompetent as well.

Let's take a look, shall we? And we'll start in an unusual place - Blago.

Yes, Rod Blagojevich. Why? Because here is the first public instance where Obama and his team could have made a "smooth horse trade" but because they wanted something for nothing, they ticked off a wild card - Hot Rod.

First we have this taped quote

“I want to make money,” the 53-year-old, bushy haired Democrat says in a telephone discussion of the seat with a lobbyist friend taped in November 2008, according to an FBI affidavit.

“I’ve got this thing and it’s (expletive) golden, and I’m just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing,” he is quoted as saying on tape"

Now you could say that was just Blago shopping around for bribes but the Obama administration was contacted and was "involved":

In fact, there are indications that Mr. Obama and his team refused to go along with the "pay to play" way Blagojevich is accused of operating, offering only "gratitude" if the governor appointed his friend Valerie Jarrett to take his U.S. Senate seat, much to the governor's chagrin.

Yes, you could look at it as only "gratitude" or you could look at it as incompetence in knowing who you are dealing with. I mean Obama and Blago go way, way back -

And, it should be pointed out, Mr. Obama has a relationship with Mr. Blagojevich, having not only endorsed Blagojevich in 2002 and 2006, but having served as a top adviser to the Illinois governor in his first 2002 run for the state house.

AND

On the Chicago TV show "Public Affairs with Jeff Berkowitz" on June 27, 2002, state Sen. Obama said, "Right now, my main focus is to make sure that we elect Rod Blagojevich as Governor, we..."

"You working hard for Rod?" interrupted Berkowitz.

"You betcha," said Obama.

"Hot Rod?" asked the host.

"That's exactly right," Obama said.

Blagojevich is going down swinging and wants Obama to testify at his trial to protect Blago from Rezko. But let's face it, Obama isn't going to touch that with a ten-foot pole if he can avoid it. Blagojevich sends not-so-subtle message to Obama

So we can see that the expectation of "pay to play" was clearly there but Obama wanted something for nothing and rejected Blogo's requests. After knowing "Hot Rod" for more than six years, you'd have thought Obama would have expected something like this.

Then we move on to Andrew Romanoff, who claims the Obama administration offered him a "position" in return for dropping out of the race.

Romanoff on Wednesday night released a copy of an e-mail in which White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina described three federal international development jobs that might be available to him if he were not challenging Sen. Michael Bennet for the Democratic nomination.

"He added that he could not guarantee my appointment to any of these positions," Romanoff said in a statement. "At no time was I promised a job, nor did I request Mr. Messina's assistance in obtaining one."

Okay, I believe you could argue that here again is another attempt at "pay to play" going wrong. Now in both cases, one could argue that these are examples of the Obama administration refusing to bribe. I'd respond that they are not so much refusing to bribe but rather attempting to haggle. Badly. Reminds me of the apocryphal Churchill exchange:

Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?
Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course...
Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds?
Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!
Churchill: Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.

Which brings us to Rep. Sestak. Memo elevates ‘Offer-gate’ to full-blown scandal As reported,

In February, Rep. Joe Sestak was asked a seemingly innocuous question by local Philadelphia television host Larry Kane: “Were you ever offered a job to get out of this race?” Sestak’s answer, and the unflinching manner in which he delivered it, are now infamous. “Yes,” he said, swift and surely. Kane pressed. “So you were offered a job by someone in the White House?” “Yes,” the answer came again. What Sestak was describing is a felony—18 USC 600 makes it a crime for anyone to offer a federal job, position, or appointment in exchange for a political act.

Bauer’s memo admits that a conversation took place between Sestak and former president Bill Clinton at the behest of the administration; and admits that Clinton and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had discussed the possibility of finding a place for Sestak on a presidential advisory board in return for his agreement not to challenge Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary. But the memo excuses the offer as legal because the advisory role the administration envisioned for the congressman would have been uncompensated. The law makes no such distinction, and the memo’s reliance on this erroneous interpretation only heightens the contradictions between what Sestak has been saying for months, and what the Obama administration has refused to discuss until now.

So yet again and assuming this is true, an incompetent Obama administration demonstrates that they wanted something for nothing by offering an unpaid position to a man running for the Senate.

Why would Sestak accept such an offer when he is a Congressman already? Why would he leave his Congressional seat for an unpaid advisory role or take on the role in addition to his regular "job"? To give up a chance to win a Senate seat from a Spector, a man who's party allegiance is dubious at best?

Did the Obama administration wanted something for nothing, or is this a lie? Either way, it is incompetent.

Clearly Obama has demonstrated what I've been saying since 2008 - that a freshman Senator does not have the competency to run America. Personally, I prefer governors since they've had the "test run" experience at the state level.

It is bad enough that Obama is incompetent in his job, but that he is also incompetent in the "Chicago Way" is pathetic. What can that man get right?