SESTAK'S SILENCE A MATTER OF DISHONOR?

Jeffrey Lord has a new piece in the American Spectator on Jobsgate, the percolating scandal involving 30 year Navy veteran, Retired Admiral, and current U.S. Representative Joe Sestak (D-PA). In February, he admitted to a talk show host that the White House offered him a job to drop out of his primary race with Arlen Spector for the upcoming election for the Pennsylvania Senate seat.

Since then, Sestak has said nothing but it was his answer to that one question that has caused Robert Gibbs to stonewall multiple times over the course of weeks.

In his latest piece, Lord goes in an interesting direction; he goes right to the core of something that should guide all of Sestak's decisions - his honor. Lord describes Sestak's reaction to the logical follow-up question, that sought to get him to reveal what job was offered and by whom:

Silent, adamantly so, he will say nothing more beyond the fact that he was offered a job by someone in the White House, something that multiples of highly qualified and knowledgeable people have now suggested to be quite possibly a federal crime.

Focus again on that second line from the "Honor Concept" as presented by the US Naval Academy on its website. Of its cadets -- the future officers of the Navy -- it insists that:

"They tell the truth and ensure that the full truth is known. They do not lie."

With Robert Gibbs not having been asked about this scandal since March 16th - which is befuddling in itself because that answer only raised more questions than it answered. It also served to potentially implicate Gibbs himself if something criminal took place.

Lord goes on to draw some extremely compelling comparisons between the tactics of this White House an those found in "The Godfather" and the bat scene in "The Untouchables". It seems to fit quite well, especially when you consider that Barack Obama's ideological mentor - also from Chicago - did an internship with Al Capone's gang, telling Playboy Magazine all about it in a 1972 interview. In fact, this exchange Alinsky relays about a conversation he had with Frank Nitti, Capone's #2 man who went by the moniker of "The Enforcer":

Once, when I was looking over their records, I noticed an item listing a $7500 payment for an out-of-town killer. I called Nitti over and I said, "Look, Mr. Nitti, I don't understand this. You've got at least 20 killers on your payroll. Why waste that much money to bring somebody in from St. Louis?" Frank was really shocked at my ignorance. "Look, kid," he said patiently, "sometimes our guys might know the guy they're hitting, they may have been to his house for dinner, taken his kids to the ball game, been the best man at his wedding, gotten drunk together. But you call in a guy from out of town, all you've got to do is tell him, 'Look, there's this guy in a dark coat on State and Randolph; our boy in the car will point him out; just go up and give him three in the belly and fade into the crowd.' So that's a job and he's a professional, he does it. But one of our boys goes up, the guy turns to face him and it's a friend, right away he knows that when he pulls that trigger there's gonna be a widow, kids without a father, funerals, weeping -- Christ, it'd be murder." I think Frank was a little disappointed by my even questioning the practice; he must have thought I was a bit callous.

According to Barack Obama's hero, Saul Alinsky, the latter was thought to be "callous" by Al Capone's enforcer. I'd expect nothing less from a man who dedicated his book to Lucifer. Should we be all that surprised if his protege uses similar tactics politically as President of the United States?

Read Jeffrey Lord's piece in the Spectator.