For all of you anticipating an investigation into the Obama administration’s thriving jobs-for-dropouts program by the most ethical Congress in history, stop dreaming.
But let’s pose broader questions regarding the Andrew Romanoff and Ron Sestak affairs: Why is it illegal to offer a position for a favor in the first place? What’s the big deal? Happens all the time. After all, it’s not as if our vast government bureaucracies employ a strict merit-driven hiring process.
If they did, would Ken Salazar be deemed the most capable person in the nation to lead the Department of the Interior? Solar-powered platitudes, empty threats and a cowboy hat can get you so far. What could possibly be the reason for a union-lackey like Hilda Solis running the Department of Labor? Labor in this case means actual jobs, right?
And, sadly, I have more business managing the Transportation Department than Ray LaHood, who believes cars are immoral, planes are unsafe and bicycles hold the key to solving the nation’s congestion.
So there is always cronyism, patronage jobs, politics-in-lieu-of-experience jobs, but they come with some level of transparency: department heads vetted, executive branch nominating, voters with a clear idea of whom to blame.
It is not the same as proactively undermining the democratic process by trading taxpayer-funded jobs so that the president’s agenda isn’t inconvenienced — as if it were some regal privilege.
Yet there was White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs this week, breezily explaining, “The president has an interest in ensuring that supporters don’t run against each other in contested primaries.”
Well, why didn’t you say that in the first place?
If the president has an interest in ensuring supporters aren’t infighting because it inconveniences him, well, please feel free to offer up government positions to clear the field in Colorado and Pennsylvania and wherever else and alleviate this anxiety.
Gibbs earlier confessed potential illegality — perhaps inadvertently — when he stated that Deputy White House Chief of Staff “Jim Messina called and e-mailed Romanoff last September to see if he was still interested in a position at USAID, or if, as had been reported, he was running for the U.S. Senate. . . . Messina wanted to determine if it was possible to avoid a costly battle between two supporters.”
(“Avoid a costly battle” says an administration that spent a reported $658 million during the 2008 presidential election after knocking off the front-running Democratic candidate in bitter primary race.)
The statute seems pretty clear in stating that any job offer made “directly or indirectly . . . to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity” is an illegal act. (Who knows? An e-mail featuring a smorgasbord of job choices should a certain somebody drop out of a certain race might be considered an “indirect” offer.)
Does the administration get to choose which laws it follows?
And no, this is not a question of competence. It is true that Sestak is the highest-ranking former military officer serving in Congress and would probably make a perfectly capable secretary of the Navy. Romanoff, once Colorado House speaker, was a capable legislator — or at least as capable as the administration-anointed Michael Bennet. Which also makes both men serious and legitimate Senate candidates.
Perhaps it’s a reflection of hubris of this administration, or perhaps its false sense of moral dominance over the debate, that it will admit to illegality (at worst) or a clear unethical transaction (at the very best).
No, this isn’t Watergate or Bribegate, and maybe this happens all the time, but let’s not downplay how sleazy it is.
E-mail David Harsanyi at dharsanyi@denverpost.com and follow him on Twitter .
