Last night, the president played host to ten House Democrats who previously voted against his health care plan in November--a seemingly obvious ploy to try and win their favor with another vote pending in the very near future. One of the ten is Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah. Is it any coincidence that just hours before the gathering at the White House, a press release had gone out announcing that Matheson's brother, Scott M. Matheson, Jr., had been nominated by President Obama for the U.S. Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit?
Of course the White House will say it's sheer coincidence. After all, it would look pretty bad for a president to use nominations to the courts as bargaining chips to win over members of Congress in voting for an incredibly unpopular health care bill, right? But one thing the Obama administration has taught us over the last year is that everything this president does has a distinct purpose and NOTHING goes unscripted. Just sayin'...
H/T to my friend John McCormack who also observes:
The timing of this nomination looks suspicious, especially in light Democratic Congressman Joe Sestak's claim that he was offered a federal job not to run against Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania primary. Many speculated that Sestak, a former admiral, was offered the Secretary of the Navy job.