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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ManyMoose who wrote (366597)	5/29/2010 1:17:16 PM
From: goldworldnet	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793846

In some cases maybe, but MPH is a little more skeptical. The enemy of your enemy can still turn against you in a heartbeat. Osama bin Laden was helped with training the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets by the CIA. Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is still your enemy. * * *

To: ManyMoose who wrote (366597)	5/29/2010 2:58:33 PM
From: KLP	1 Recommendation Respond to of 793846

Clinton Cutout Posted 05/28/2010 07:15 PM ET Bauer: A 'report' or an alibi? Alibis: The White House's official explanation for Sestak-gate is one for the books: We employed Bill Clinton as courier to present an offer of no value. Since when does Special Delivery bring empty packages? In espionage parlance, a "cutout" is an intermediary who takes information from one agent to another, possibly not even knowing the content or significance of what he carries. If a cutout is captured or exposed, the others are protected. White House counsel Robert Bauer has issued what the media insist on calling a "report" on the efforts to get Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., not to run in the Democratic primary against Sen. Arlen Specter, the liberal Republican who switched parties last year. It's actually nothing but a page-and-a-half-long memo. Instead of investigating, Bauer's office "reviewed" the "discussions" between White House staff and Sestak. Turns out Clinton was asked by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to be a kind of cutout. The Bauer memo claims that in June or July 2009, Clinton "agreed to raise with Congressman Sestak options of service on a Presidential or other Senior Executive Branch Advisory Board." But Sestak wouldn't bite. This alibi boils down to: "We didn't try to bribe Sestak; we got Bill Clinton to try to bribe him for us. But what we were offering wasn't worth anything. So it couldn't be a bribe." The memo makes a great point of noting that "the advisory positions discussed ... would have been uncompensated" — as if that puts the issue to rest. It doesn't, by any stretch. The White House may be betting that neither Clinton nor Emanuel was offering "any money or thing of value," as bribery is described in the law. But an "uncompensated" seat on a commission is still a "thing of value." The value is in the prestige, which could have helped Sestak raise campaign funds, win reelection to his House seat, rise in the ranks of the House leadership or to an eventual appointment in the executive branch, or result in a lucrative job offer in the private sector. Moreover, the law prohibits a government official from "interfering with, or affecting, the nomination or the election of any candidate for the office of ... Member of the Senate ... ." The White House may also think it has found a loophole in that a spot on a "Presidential Advisory Board" may not be judged by the courts to be "provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress," as one passage of the law describes federal jobs used as bribery. Far from clearing the air, the Bauer memo is in fact a smoking gun. "Discussions" of "alternative paths to service" are just a cleverly-disguised update of the favor-based, machine politics imported from Daley's Chicago to Emanuel's Washington, D.C. investors.com