Sestak: Follow-Up Needed

Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation posted this piece on the Foundry Blog site yesterday, and the second comment is from me.

In the below article, quoting from the White House Counsel paper, the key word is "these." Check out this clip:

(White House Counsel) Bauer denies that White House staff directly discussed these offers with Sestak; instead, Rahm Emanuel, the Chief of Staff, enlisted former President Bill Clinton to “raise” these options with Sestak. Sestak “declined the suggested alternatives, remaining committed to his Senate candidacy.”

Here's my theory: The contact both the White House and Sestak addressed yesterday probably did take place, but it was only the first contact. I'm betting there were more contacts (at least one) after Sestak appeared to have a chance to defeat Specter in the primary, and those contacts involved other offers - more enticing than the offer of "additional service to the public in a high-level advisory capacity.”

It's been painful to watch a former two-star Admiral in the world's greatest Navy squirm, dissemble, and do everything possible to avoid answering the questions put to him so far. It makes one wonder about the selection process for promotion to the rank of Admiral.

Water boarding might be necessary to get the whole truth about the White House job offer out of this man.

Here's the article by Hans von Spakovsky.

Sestak Memo Only Raises More Questions | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.

Follow-Up Questions Never Asked (2).

During last Sunday's blitz on the talk shows (excluding Fox News), President Obama was asked, during his CBS interview with Bob Schieffer, about a leaked report that General Stanley McChrystal was asking for 45,000 additional troops in Afghanistan, warning that the failure to provide the troops would result in failure. The following is from the transcript:

Schieffer: Well if he asked you for that many troops, you're going to have a hard time saying no, are you not?

Obama: Let's be clear, my central focus is, what are we doing to protect the American people and the American homeland? Afghanistan and Pakistan are critical elements in that process but the only reason I send a single young man or woman in uniform anywhere in the world is because I think it's necessary to keep us safe. And so whatever decisions I make are going to be based first on a strategy to keep us safe, then we'll figure out how to resource it. We're not gonna put the cart before the horse and just think by sending more troops we're automatically going to make Americans safe.

Follow-Up Not Asked: Mr. president, you are obviously aware of your overwhelming responsibility when sending a "single man or woman in uniform anywhere in the world," but wouldn't that also make you responsible for keeping those young men and women already sent as safe as possible and as well equipped as possible? How would you explain to the parents of a young man or woman who does not return from Afghanistan that you had not acted on the professional (rather than political) advice of your top generals and sent the additional troops who could have been watching the back of their son or daughter?
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In his interview the same day with George Stephanopoulos of ABC, Obama got into a debate over the definition of the word "tax." Stephanopoulos finally read the official definition of "tax" from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and Obama's reply was reminiscent of the famous presidential retort: "It depends on what the meaning of the word "is," "is." Stephanopoulos had called the mandate to purchase insurance a tax increase, and Obama replied in his usual way. The following is from the transcript:

OBAMA: No, but… but, George, you… you can't just make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I… I don't think I'm making it up. Merriam Webster's Dictionary: Tax…"a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes."

OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's Dictionary, the… definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you're stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone to the… dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what...

Follow-Up Not Asked: OK, Mr. president, since you do not agree with the definition provided by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, what exactly is your definition of the word "tax."

Follow-Up Questions Never Asked.

Did you ever watch an interview during which an answer by the interviewee cried out for an obvious follow-up question, only to be frustrated by the failure of the interviewer to ask it? Of course, when the interviewer is a thinly disguised cheerleader for the interviewee, we can't expect obvious follow-up questions to be asked, as they could tend to unmask the skillful obfuscation in the initial answer.

Two recent failures to ask obvious follow-up questions of the president continue to bother me:

1. The president, having been asked (as have many members of Congress) whether he and his family would opt for the government/public health insurance plan for their health insurance should that option be a part of any health care reform, answered something like this: Well. I'm the president of the United States, and I am followed by a doctor everywhere I go, etc, etc.

Follow-Up: I understand that, Mr. president, but someday you will no longer be president, so will you, today, pledge that the day you leave the White House you will enroll your family and yourself in any government/public option for health insurance that you and Congress are telling us will be so good for us? Please answer yes or no.

2. We've all heard the president explain that one of the ways he is going to help pay the astronomical costs associated with his health care reform is by cutting $250 Billion in "waste, fraud, and abuse" from medicare and medicaid.

Follow-Up: Exactly when did we discover that there was $250 Billion in "waste, fraud and abuse" in those programs; where did that figure come from, and why, if there is so much "waste, fraud, and abuse," are we not at this very moment doing everything possible to eliminate it?