The last impeached president has denied he helped another president commit an impeachable offense.
While stumping for Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania, Bill Clinton denied offering Sestak an unpaid government position as an enticement to suspend his successful primary challenge against Arlen Specter.
Clinton can be seen on a recent video stating three times that he made no such efforts. (See below.) “I didn’t try to get him out of the race,” Clinton said. “In fact, I wasn’t even accused of that.”
The ex-president had previously dodged the question altogether.
His comments contradict a memo the White House released in May to quell Republican charges the Obama administration had bribed Sestak to get him out of the race. It stated: “The White House Chief of Staff enlisted the support of former President Clinton who agreed to raise with Congressman Sestak options of service on a Presidential or other Senior Executive Branch Advisory Board. Congressman Sestak declined the suggested alternatives, remaining committed to his Senate candidacy.”
Any offer of a quid pro quo for Sestak to withdraw from the race would constitute an impeachable offense. The law prohibits offering a position, even an unpaid one, in return for “consideration” or “reward” for “any political activity.”
If Obama is guilty of making a direct political offer – which is the Chicago way – his attempt to undermine the political process would be more damaging than Watergate. Congress was poised to impeach Richard Nixon for covering up a burglary that in no way changed the outcome of the 1972 presidential election. But Sestak beat Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary and currently trails Republican opponent Pat Toomey, exactly the scenario the White House sought to prevent. Democratic advisers believed Specter, a five-term incumbent, stood a better chance at keeping the seat in their party’s hands.
Clinton may have another interest in impeachment besides empathy. Chatter has exploded in recent weeks that Obama should name Hillary Clinton as vice president in place of Joe Biden. A later impeachment could result in President Hillary.
Clinton’s implausible denials should infuriate Republicans, who remember his history of mendacity and verbal gymnastics. He proven himself adept at twisting language to ring out any semblance of meaning, as well as denying the undeniable without batting an eye. He deployed both these weapons, and a booming economy, to beat the Republican impeachment in his second term. Will their memory lead them to pursue the Sestak bribery story? Already Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA, has responded to the denials with calls for further investigation.
The overarching question is: Will Republicans show more resolve pursuing Obama’s wrongdoing than they did during Clinton’s impeachment?
Here is a chronology of the Sestak scandal. Watch Clinton’s denial:
-The Right Scoop picks up this unusually concrete statement from the Obama administration on their response to Arizona’s new immigration-enforcement law. Up to now, the White House, including Barack Obama himself, has remained noncommittal about taking legal action against Arizona while continuing to criticize the bill publicly. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton removes the ambiguity and declares that the Justice Department will sue over the bill in an interview with an Ecuador media outlet:
While the country digests yesterday’s primaries, the White House political machine is undoubtedly working overtime on a more distant challenge – how to get President Obama reelected in 2012.
Here’s a prediction: the Obama administration will bounce Joe Biden off the 2012 ticket, and invite Hillary Clinton to run in his stead.
The move will aim to bolster Obama’s standing and provide some excitement among core Democrats – something that Biden fails to provide. Hillary will agree, because just four years later she will be superbly positioned to run for president – ever the rainbow on her personal horizon.
At present, her polls are high, with 58% of voters viewing her at least somewhat favorably.
Wistful Dems who wonder these days what could have been will tout her hard work and pragmatic diplomacy as she chases one impossible Obama pipe dream after another to all corners of the globe.
Months after President Obama urged federal agencies last year to cut wasteful spending, the U.S. Department of State paid $3,814 to fill an order of Jack Daniel’s whiskey for gratuities at one of its many overseas embassies.
The booze buy wasn’t unusual.
Last year alone, the State Department sent taxpayers tabs totaling nearly $300,000 for alcoholic beverages — about twice as much compared to the previous year, according to an analysis of spending records by The Washington Times.
The purchases, small and large, included $2,483 to pay for "assorted spirits for gratuities to vendors" at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in New York, and $9,501 in "Christmas gratuities" of whiskey and wine at the U.S. Embassy in South Korea.
Taxpayer watchdogs say while accounting for a small fraction of the State Department’s overall budget, some of the liquor expenditures reflect larger concerns about stewardship of federal tax dollars at a time when many recession-weary Americans find themselves struggling to hold onto jobs and pay mortgages.
Obama gives $6 Million to Clintons former pollster
Nearly $6 million in stimulus money was paid to two firms run by Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s pollster in 2008.
Federal records show that $5.97 million from the $787 billion stimulus helped preserve three jobs at Burson-Marsteller, the global public-relations and communications firm headed by Penn.
Burson-Marsteller won the contract to work on a public-relations campaign to advertise the national switch from analog to digital television. Nearly $2.8 million of the contract was issued to Penn’s polling firm, Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, according to federal records.
Federal records also show that a former adviser to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign received nearly $70,000 from that contract to help alert viewers in difficult-to-reach communities that their televisions would soon no longer receive broadcast signals.
The adviser, Alfredo J. Balsera, who heads a public-affairs firm based in Coral Gables, Fla., helped craft Obama’s Hispanic advertising message.
Clinton doesn’t like being told what to do by Rahm Emanuel
It sounds like a story with a happy ending. Eighteen months ago Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were at each other’s throats as they battled for the White House. Then, after Mr Obama’s inspired selection of his old rival for the top US foreign policy post, the two turned into a team, with Mrs Clinton becoming the most formidable asset of the administration.
There is only one catch to the tale. There is no guarantee that it will finish on an upbeat note.
Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama are now deluged by foreign policy problems and the secretary of state has to contend with an overbearing White House and her own tendency to voice inconvenient truths.
That said, things have gone more smoothly than anyone would have imagined after the two Democrats’ bad-tempered primary fight.
Hillary was too busy praising Obama to recognize the work of Reagan
It’s bad enough that President Obama could not be bothered to attend the celebrations marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But Hillary Clinton’s refusal to even acknowledge the role played by Ronald Reagan in the Wall’s demise as well as the downfall of Communism was highly insulting towards one of the greatest figures of our time, and reeked of petty and partisan mean-spiritedness.
The Secretary of State’s remarks yesterday in Berlin completely erased from history the huge contribution played not only by President Reagan but also by the United States in confronting the Soviet Empire. In her speech she applauded half of Europe, but could not bring herself to thank those Americans who bravely served their country and in many cases laid down their lives in defeating Communism, under Reagan’s leadership.
Here is what Clinton said in Berlin on behalf of the Obama administration:
Clinton and Obama both talk a big talk, but so far neither yield results
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tense exchanges with Pakistani civilians and Arab diplomats over a harrowing week of foreign stops exposed the confining limits of her office.
On her most ambitious and contentious overseas trip as secretary of state, Clinton had to resort to damage control after she appeared to mangle the Obama administration’s message on frozen Mideast peace talks.
And while she scored points back home by standing up to angry Pakistanis who confronted her about drone-launched U.S. missile strikes, her blunt questioning of the resolve of Pakistan’s government exposed American impatience with the country’s incremental steps against terrorists.
In each case her extraordinarily public approach to diplomacy — for better or worse — reflected not only her personal style but also President Barack Obama’s promise to reach out openly to friend as well as foe. What remains less clear is whether Clinton’s hot-button politician’s persona works any better at producing international results — let alone clarity — than a more classic diplomat’s cooler tact.
By James Lamont in New Delhi, James Fontanella-Khan in Mumbai and Daniel Dombey in Washington, The Financial Times
India on Sunday night rebuffed an appeal by Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, to embrace a low-carbon future in which the two countries would work together to devise new ways of consuming and producing energy.
Mrs Clinton, on a five-day visit to the country, said that low-carbon emissions would not jeopardise India’s high economic growth rates and its goal of lifting millions of people out of poverty. She offered a technological partnership to secure the fast growing nation’s energy supplies and help boost the livelihoods of its farmers.
“There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have been among the lowest emissions per capita, face to actually reduce emissions,” Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister told Mrs Clinton. “And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours.”
In spite of the two countries’ battles in global trade talks and fears of India’s slipping down the US’s priority list, Mrs Clinton vowed that Washington would not do “anything” to stand in the way of the world’s largest democracy’s economic progress.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged President Obama for two days to toughen his language on Iran before he did so, and then was surprised when he condemned Iran’s crackdown on demonstrators last week, administration officials say.
At his June 23 news conference, Mr. Obama said he was “appalled and outraged” by Iranian behavior and “strongly condemned” the violence against anti-government demonstrators. Up until then, Mr. Obama and other administration officials had taken a softer line, expressing “deep concern” about the situation and calling on Iran to “respect the dignity of its own people.”
Behind the scenes, the officials, who spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were discussing internal deliberations, said Mrs. Clinton had been advocating the stronger U.S. response, but the president resisted. When he finally took her advice, the aides said, he did so without informing her first.
the Democrats power combo
that’s just great
Obama gives $6 Million to Clintons former pollster 
