Chicago ward politics came into play this week when the White House admitted that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel recruited former President Bill Clinton to offer an alleged “unpaid presidential advisory role” to Rep. Joe Sestak if he didn’t run against White House-backed Sen. Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary.  Sestak turned down the offer and went on to defeat Specter in the primary last week.

The federal bribery statute, 18 USC Section 201 makes it a crime to “corruptly . . . give, offer, or promise . . . anything of value . . . to a public official . . . with intent to influence” that official in “an official act.”

The serious question here is whether this is an impeachable offense?

The White House says not.  Waiting until a Friday before a Memorial Day weekend, a sleazy tactic hoping the controversial news would get lost in a holiday weekend,  White House Counsel Robert Bauer, said the act was none other than Bill Clinton who offered Sestak not the position  of Secretary of the Navy as some have alleged, but rather an unpaid, advisory position if he would stay in his job as a congressman and decline to take on Sen. Specter in the primary.

Now it is clear by previous actions and statements by President Obama that he thinks the citizens of this country are fools.

The carefully selected words of the White House Counsel are meant to dodge the law in some form of legal manipulation.

Furthermore who would think that Emanuel, who is not unaccustomed to hard nose back room horse trading, would not have discussed this ploy with Obama and receive his approval to approach his former boss, Bill Clinton to make an offer of some kind to Sestak?

Remember it was Emanuel who admitted to talking to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich about the type of person who should replace the president in the Senate.  Blagojevich was later ousted amid a federal corruption investigation alleging he was trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder.  However, no one in the Obama administration was implicated – yet!

And is it really plausible to think that an administration would pick a former president to offer Sestak ‘an unpaid, advisory position’ to not run against Specter?

Now the unpaid, advisory position to the president is apparently the legal dodge to argue that it is not “anything of value” as the law describes bribery.

However, I will leave that to the lawyers to debate in the court of law.

But in the court of public opinion the Obama administration is loosing day by day as his approval rating of 42 % demonstrates, and this Chicago style politics is but one more nail in the coffin of Obama’s public image and failed promises.

Is this the same man that promised to bring ethics and transparency to beltway politics?

No, these are just two kids we took out of Chicago, but you can’t take Chicago out of these two kids.