Another Democrat has said that the White House dangled job offers rather than have him challenge another Democrat in a primary.

Andrew Romanoff, a former speaker of the Colorado House seeking to take the party nomination away from Mr. Bennet, said that while no job was formally offered, three specific positions were mentioned as possibilities last September. He said he declined to consider the opportunities to pursue his race for the Senate.

Of course this will gin up more right-wing bloviation and give Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) another reason to go on Hardball or Fox News and talk about the culture of corruption and hint at impeachment. (Mr. Issa has some explaining to do himself about his own past.)

And the more he and the righties carry on about this, the more people are inclined to think it’s a nothingburger. Even people from the Bush administration’s Justice Department think this is bupkus, and they should know whereof they speak. After all, if you want to talk about the good stuff, there’s always firing U.S. attorneys who don’t toe the party line. Now that’s corruption.

The Villager reaction — i.e. George Will and David Brooks — is a pale imitation of Captain Renault in Casablanca: They’re shocked, shocked, to find job offers being dangled. They say that President Obama came into office promising not to do the politics-as-usual dealmaking. Oh, please. It’s hard to say which is more ridiculous; the idea that a president would actually forgo political dealing, or that the critics could be shocked and saddened that it’s going on.