John Dickerson over at Slate wants to know what Obama promised to Joe Sestak if he would drop out of the Senate race.  Sestak claims that an administration official offered him a job if he would drop out.  I don’t know what some unnamed administration official said to Joe Sestak.  John Dickerson doesn’t know, and the right-wing reactionaries who are swarming all over this “news” don’t either.  All we really know is that Joe Sestak is running for Senate against a long-time incumbent and thinks that saying the Whitehouse offered him a job to step aside is more likely to help his campaign than hurt it.  Given the general consensus on the anti-incumbent vibe sweeping the country, he’s probably right.

Did he get offered a position within the administration? Maybe.  If so, would taking the position preclude continuing his campaign for the Senate? Probably.  Would an Obama administration official explicitly make the connection in a conversation with Sestak?  No chance in hell.  Dickerson even admits as much in his article.  What’s got him all worked up is the Whitehouse response to these allegations.  He quotes Whitehouse spokesman Robert Gibbs:

Lawyers in the White House and others have looked into conversations that were had with Congressman Sestak and nothing inappropriate happened.

According to Dickerson that’s not enough.  That sounds too much like the Bush Whitehouse.  But I don’t see what he wants.  Even if Sestak was offered a position, every reasonable person acknowledges that it would never have been explicitly tied to his dropping out of the Senate race.  Since this is the only potentially inappropriate subject under consideration, what is the Whitehouse supposed to say?  Sometimes there is no conspiracy, no cover-up.  Sometimes “nothing inappropriate happened” means nothing inappropriate happened.