That was the justification laid out for the Nebraska bribe that happened during HCR and Ben Nelson's shenanigans. A predictable firestorm broke out. So when I saw the usual suspects trotting out this defense over Sestak and whatever claims he had to getting a job offer from someone in the WH to not run against Specter, it smelled like smoke again.

Here's a perspective from Greg Sargent that reads like a circling of the wagons in DC-- with Sestak on the outside looking in:

Sestak has played this too cute by half, and he needs to clean up this mess...

Sestak could fix this situation quickly by detailing his original claim. Should the White House also offer an account? It's true that the White House has acknowledged vaguely that there were conversations of a sort. But the White House isn't even acknowledging the core of Sestak's assertion.

The primary burden rests on Sestak to clarify what happened -- because he made the claim in the first place.

Though people forget this now, Sestak made the assertion back when it was helpful to him to do so, in February, when his primary challenge was fresh and he was positioning himself as an outsider heroically bucking the Dem establishment.

The Sestak camp will argue that all he did was answer affirmatively when asked whether he'd been offered a job to drop the primary challenge. But he got this ball rolling. He's declined to answer questions since. And this story has now taken on a life of its own. The larger political context isn't going away.

Even if the truth isn't remotely controversial, the onus is on him to fix this by explaining what happened. Saying nothing is worse for him, as well as Dems in general.

I think Greg is confusing the "Dems in general" here with whomever in the WH made the job offer.

Lets assume that Sestak is telling the truth. And not to give a false outrage about this, but the gist of what Greg is saying is that Sestak was a fool to not outright lie when the question was asked of him. Well, that's one way of looking at it.

The other is to just acknowledge that this 'happens all the time' but really shouldn't, but it does, so whatever; partisan games. Has there been an educated guess yet at whom made the offer? I really doubt that Sestak is going to fall on the sword for whomever in the WH made the offer.

... In other news, 100,000 teachers nationwide are facing a layoff and the US money supply is plunging.