Opinion

O Goes ‘Washington’

‘Politics as usual”: To most Americans, it’s be come a dirty phrase. To the Beltway crowd, it’s the reflexive defense for the White House’s dispatching of a former president to try muscling Rep. Joe Sestak out of the Pennsylvania Democratic primary.

Obama & Co. wanted to clear the primary field for Sen. Arlen Specter, who embodies everything Americans hate about politicians. A party-switching career pol, “Spineless Specter” holds no discernible principles, save his unshakable belief that he is entitled to hold power.

Sorry, but this isn’t “change you can believe in.”

One wonders if the White House believes it somehow will be left unscathed by the anti-Washington fervor now sweeping the electorate. Dirty deals and establishment politicians are finally out of style.

Remember “the Cornhusker Kickback”? That was “politics as usual,” too, and it was met with outrage from the people who would have benefited from it, turning formerly popular Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson into a near-pariah in his state.

Nelson thought that by sweetening his unpopular health-care vote with federal dollars for his state he could effectively bribe voters for their support. It might have worked in the past — but the times they are a-changing.

Ironically, it was Barack Obama who helped usher in these changes, tapping into a disgust with Washington ways and promising an end to those “politics as usual.”

In his campaign announcement speech, Obama highlighted his lack of Beltway experience: “I know I haven’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.”

Or not.

With Rep. Daryl Issa leading the charge, the Republicans are claiming that the Sestak overture was illegal. Based on what has been disclosed — the dangling of a nonpaying advisory-board post — a criminal case is a stretch. There has never been a prosecution under the 1972 law cited by the Republicans. Nor does the law appear to have been created to deal with a situation like this.

So, unless new facts come out (always a possibility), the Obama White House has little to fear — legally. Politically, it should be very concerned.

The worst case is that the Republicans win control of Congress and launch an investigation. You know the drill: no underlying crime, but you get people under oath and they say something untrue or contradictory and suddenly you have a felony, i.e. lying under oath.

The best-case scenario, which isn’t that great, is that the GOP weaves a narrative of Obama as being just another typical Washington politician.

The plot has already begun. GOP talkers are highlighting a Washington Post story that claims Colorado Democrat Andrew Romanoff said he was offered an administration job to drop out of the Senate primary. (The White House denies this.)

More fodder: The revelation in Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One” that Obama offered White House counsel Greg Craig a federal judgeship on the DC Circuit in an effort to ease him out of the White House.

Washington insiders are incredulous that any of this could ever matter, viewing it (correctly) as typical politics that happen all the time. But that’s the point.

Obama promised to change Washington’s culture. Instead, his White House counsel justified the White House move by pointing out that past White Houses have done Sestak-type deals, though he offered no examples.

Change indeed.

Charlie Cook, analyzing the current political environment, pointed out in a recent report that, “long-serving Democratic members of Congress identified as having ‘gone Washington’ are especially under threat.” Presumably, the same holds for short-serving Democratic presidents. kirstenpowers@aol.com