Bill Clinton’s picture is again a fixture on cable news.
Republicans are sternly demanding a special prosecutor.
And legal commentators are bickering over the finer points of federal criminal statutes on bribery and graft.
It feels like 1997 — but it’s 2010. And Barack Obama can’t be happy.
The White House’s confirmation Friday that it enlisted former President Bill Clinton in an effort to get Rep. Joe Sestak out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary has sent the regular players in Washington’s scandal industry to their battle stations — to pick over the very sort of insider special dealing that Obama had promised to make a thing of the past.
“That’s not the image he wants to project right now with all the things that are going on,” said Mark Rozell, a George Mason University professor who has written at length on the Clinton-era scandals.
The use of Clinton as the conduit to offer Sestak an advisory board position is like catnip for cable television and for Republicans who have plenty of experience painting the former president as ethically challenged.
“I’m sure there’s substantial precedent for an administration to subtly suggest to a potential candidate, ‘Maybe you’d like to step aside.’ But [the fact that] this controversy involves a former president who just happens to be married to a member of his Cabinet just moves this to a whole different level,” Rozell said. “Clinton’s administration was involved in a number of ethics controversies and investigations just like this. ... This looks like a rookie administration type of mistake.” - Politico Story
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