The Sestak Lies

We’ve noted on other occasions the benefits of living in the internet age, where access to facts, information and opinion is still largely unfettered. In simple terms, the worldwide 24/7/365 web makes truth harder to suppress; more difficult to conceal. We as individuals still have to be alert and not lazy, but if we are, and if we really want to know what’s going on and be in a position to help steer ourselves, our communities, our nation and the world in a direction more consistent with truth, we can do it.

Al l of this comes to mind as we witness the out-and-out lying being orchestrated by the White House to cover for the felony that clearly took place as the White House tried to protect Pennsylvania Democrat Senator Arlen Specter from a primary challenge by Democrat Congressman Joe Sestak.

Why do we say out-and-out lying? How can we be sure? As the liberal elitist would lecture anyone and everyone, “who are we to know what the truth about anything is? The media says this, the White House says that, pundits say other things, and it’s all a jumble. Plus, everybody lies, so just get over it and live with it.”

Well, not everybody lies. And choosing to live with the concept that everybody lies and ‘get over it’ is really not an option; a society that loses all respect for truth is a society incapable of law and order and justice. Truth matters; we know this in our hearts.

So back to the Sestak lies—and the truth-liberating power of the internet.

Let’s start with what the law is. In the internet age, we don’t have to ask someone else what it is; we don’t have to see what some cub reporter summarizes it to be; we can actually read it.

"18 U.S.C. § 211 : US Code - Section 211: Acceptance or Solicitation to Obtain Appointive Public Office -- Whoever solicits or receives, either as a political contribution, or for personal emolument, any money or thing of value, in consideration of the promise of support or use of influence in obtaining for any person any appointive office or place under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both."

AND

"18 U.S.C. § 600 : US Code - Section 600: Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment, position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit, provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party in connection with any general or special election to any political office, or in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both."

It is a ‘thing of value’ to the White House if Arlen Specter is preserved as the Democrat Senator from Pennsylvania; the offer to Sestak was also, plainly, a direct or indirect promise of an appointment of other benefit to him as a reward for not interfering with Specter's reelection bid. So when the White House solicited Sestak to decline to run for the Senate in exchange for an appointive office in the federal government, the ‘White House’—which in this case means Rahm Emanuel acting with the approval of Obama—committed multiple felonies.

So we know what the law is. But how do we know this ‘version’ of what transpired is accurate? After all, we now have official statements from the White House and Sestak which carefully and cleverly use ‘good ole boy’ Bill Clinton (known perjurer) to explain that there was just one harmless and vague conversation between Clinton and Sestak, and therefore there’s nothing to see here and it’s time to move along.

Here’s the relevant portion of Sestak’s heavily wordsmithed statement:

"Last summer, I received a phone call from President Clinton. During the course of the conversation, he expressed concern over my prospects if I were to enter the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and the value of having me stay in the House of Representatives because of my military background. He said that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had spoken with him about my being on a Presidential Board while remaining in the House of Representatives. I said no. I told President Clinton that my only consideration in getting into the Senate race or not was whether it was the right thing to do for Pennsylvania working families and not any offer. The former President said he knew I'd say that, and the conversation moved on to other subjects.”

Sestak’s statement, of course, does not address the question of whether this was the only conversation Sestak had with Clinton or Emanuel or anyone else in the White House on the same subject. Plus the blogosphere has already picked up on the fact that Sestak wasn't even eligible to serve on the ‘Presidential Board’ referred to in the statement.

But all of this may seem like sleuthing over trivia. What really puts the lie to the whole orchestrated coverup is this interview with Sestak. Just watch it for yourself. Make up your own mind.

Anyone with a pulse and a brain can listen to both excerpts with Sestak and know to 100% certainty that he was offered a major job by the White House, probably Secretary of the Navy, to get out of the race against Specter. Plain and simple. Every other explanation is a lie. The White House explanation is a lie; and Joe Sestak is lying.

There are plenty of DC insiders and fixers who would argue that the law is silly; that horse-trading like this goes on all the time. That’s the extra spin the White House is trying to throw in to the overall story because they know their portrayal of the sequence of events is a lie that is not going to hold.

So what does all of this matter? Politicians lie, bribe and cheat their way through everything. This is news? No, it’s not news, but the fact that it is not news is why the tea parties continue to grow. The Political Class has crossed the Rubicon with one too many examples of orchestrated lies, and far from becoming desensitized to it all, the web has made these episodes stick in the American people’s craw like never before.

Joe Sestak thinks no one really notices his lies. The mainstream media runs interference with stories that reject the notion that anyone can discern truth and lies anymore, and even if they can, they don’t care about the lies. A media-driven poll tells Sestak he can weather it all; and the whole leftist establishment raises a glass to their triumphant cleverness.

But the manipulation and deceit, all premised on the ignorance, stupidity or disengagement of the American people, just isn’t working anymore. The American people ARE noticing. They are not fools and do not appreciate being treated as such. They were defrauded in 2008 by Obama and his lies, and the media’s complicity in those lies, and now they know it. Sestak is just one more example that might not be important had it popped up earlier and could have been sold as an isolated example of lies and cover-ups. But we’re 17 months into this criminally fraudulent regime, and Sestak is receiving more attention and focus than he would otherwise. And as we’ve chronicled, the record provided by the web makes it completely clear to anyone with a grain of common sense that Sestak is lying about what transpired.

The American people are not amused, and they are out of patience. Democrats and ‘moderate’ Republicans are whistling past their own graveyard; they just don’t know it yet. But they will.

Paul Gable

May 29, 2010