Kelly's failure of logic

Just so we understand, Jack Kelly wants to make something of the job offer by the White House made to Joe Sestak. I suspect Kelly will bring this up again later, during the campaign, when Kelly is shilling for Toomey. But Kelly's logic is at best confusing, at worst deliberately misleading. He wants to say that Sestak did not intend or want for this job offer to get out in Februrary. Kelly also suggests that Sestak realized he had made a gaffe, and shut up about it until after the primary was over. Finally Kelly suggests that the White House joined Sestak in a cover up. Kelly's contention is that when Sestak spoke in February he was talking about a real position like Secretary of the Navy.

Maybe that's so, but logic doesn't really support that idea. Sestak was not considered likely to win back in February, not to say whenever the job offer might have been made. What I have read is that the White House did want to reward Arlen Specter for having first voting with Democrats and then switching to the Democratic party. But they also wanted Sestak to stay in the House, where he was helping out the democrats there. So they wanted to offer him a prestigious position that would allow him to stay in the House, but something that might allow him to run for a higher office in the future (maybe in six years if Arlen finally decided he was tired of it).

Now as I said, Kelly wants to say that Sestak was talking about a real paying job in February, not an unpaid (but theoretically politically valuable) position. The White House denied that it was a paid job in February (as I understand it), but Kelly says why not reveal that it was, if it was, in February, to help Specter? I don't know, I give up, why not? Perhaps because Sestak and the White House are telling the truth, or perhaps because Sestak was right in February but decided (along with the White House) not to get involved in a felony investigation or at least in having Republicans call for such an investigation.

As I said, I fully expect Kelly to bring this up again. The thing is, unless, first there is something to what Kelly thinks (that someone is lying about something) and second, that someone will come forward and tell all, then all Kelly will be doing is speculating (blowing hot air). Which is no surprise.

Along a different line, Meet the Press was preempted this morning by tennis or golf (I was up too late to see if it been on earlier, and didn't look at MSNBC or where ever to find it elsewhere), so I watch ABC's Sunday show ("This Week"). The round table discussion included Liz Cheney, who lived up to her patrimony (so to speak). Among the outrageous things I recall her saying was to state that the Obama administration had signed off on the BP drilling rig, and therefore owns the disaster. She and George Will whined loudly (in an embarrassing display) about Bush and Cheney (the father) being blamed once again when it wasn't their fault. Cheney also accused Obama of saying there is a moral equivalency between the Holocaust and what has happened to the Palestinians. Now, I don't know exactly what Obama has said, but I think it might be prudent to consider that the Arabs who surround Israel are a lot more sympathetic to the Palestinians than to the Jews. Cheney apparently wants the Arabs to see her point of view, which in the real world means she wants Israel to stay in a permanent state of war. This would be disastrous for the United States, which will need Arabian oil for some time to come (even while the American public will want to see Israel continue to exist). Apparently Poltifact is fact checking at least some of what is said on "This Week", so maybe we will get some of the real story (maybe).