…is not just a river in Egypt, here’s lemming-like partisan Duncan Black on Abramoff:
Democrats took no Abramoff campaign money. None.
Taking money from Indian tribes is not in and of itself illegal or unethical. Indian tribe money is not implicitly dirty money.
Taking money from Indian tribes who were bilked and cheated by Abramoff does not mean that you yourself are guilty of bilking or cheating those tribes.
This stuff is not complicated. It’s very simple. People working in Washington for a long time certainly understand these things. Why they pretend to not understand them is a mystery.
Look. Abramoff was a GOP creature, without any plausible question or exception. He was a part and parcel of the immoral ‘K Street project,’ without question or exception. The GOP legislators, consultants, and staff who dined at his table deserve what they are going to get.
But if you want to presume that the Republican legislators who got his personal cash were somehow less filthy than the Democratic ones who took his client’s cash, you’re morally blind.
And if you don’t think that’s how the American people will see it, you’re politically blind as well.
Then again, I am talking about Atrios…
I can’t figure it out. At what point does actually winning become a goal for these self-professed partisans? What, exactly, is the attraction of the cliff to them?
Taking the clients money as a legal contribution is not the same as taking illegal bribes or Abramoff getting large amounts of money which were siphoned off to support partisan Republican interests not related to the lobbying interest of the clients. It is simply not. This is not a scandal about contributions, but money laundering and illegal gifts.
Reid, Dorgan and the other Dems who represent significant numbers of American Indians should not be expected to decline contributions because the tribes were Abramoff’s clients. We can reopen that case if any evidence surfaces that these pols took illegal contributions, or that Abramoff sought a quid pro quo for the contributions.
Until then, let’s define the issues in this scandal accurately for the public: illegal gifts to Republicans and extortion of funds from clients to support the Republicans and their allies.
I don’t know but reading comments on Mrs Alito by koskids pretty much exactly the same thought crossed my head, except I phrased it differently:
If I was a power-hungry democrat, I’d have massive quantities of heroin planted on kos, atrios et al.
But, hey, I’m not!
I notice that all the Republicans who were recipients of Abramoff’s largesse and making a big show of contributing the money that they received from him to charity, are all careful to make the distinction between Abramoff’s contributions and contributions from his clients.
Dubyah makes a big deal of returning six thousand dollars and the guy was a Pioneer (bundled one hundred thousand of donations) fer Christ Sake. If that is the story that the Republicans want to use in their defense, fine. But if they are going to attack Democrats as being in on the deal because they took money that they claim, implicitly, was OK, then the MSM and the blogs need to do some correcting. If you want claim that taking money from a lobbyists clients is bad ethics, fine, but then the Republicans stink all the more because after getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar they now stand hip deep in their bull.
#1 and #3
I “recently”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/007940.php#c6 also tried to get AL to recognize this distinction, but failed to extract a satisfactory response.
Furthermore, he seemed to suddently become too busy to engage this issue and explain his contentions more fully, and abandoned the thread. I fear his role in this one will end similarly.
In light of his desire to view something as “balanced” that is not, I don’t think his views on this issue should be taken seriously until he can explain to us that he understands the role of “The K-Street Project”:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0307.confessore.html in the Republican Party’s rise to power, and why the Democrats should receive equal blame given that no such equivalent organization (or anything even remotely like it) exists for their party.
Especially since he’s trying to assert that pointing out facts is a bad electoral strategy.
Furthermore:
“But if you want to presume that the Republican legislators who got his personal cash were somehow less filthy than the Democratic ones who took his client’s cash, you’re morally blind.”
This is first and foremost a problem of providing accurate information.
When the Media makes “factually false claims”:http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/01/washington-post-ombudsman-repeats-lie.html, the first order of business is correcting it, especially when they get “repeated”:http://mediamatters.org/items/200601150001 more than “once.”:http://mediamatters.org/items/200512190014
SECONDARY to this is whether one or another commentator or individual who hears this information, in its accurate form, makes a presumption about what it means.
Accusing someone of being “morally blind” because they think it is important to state facts is a rather odd contention, I would say.
But I do see a growing problem with Duncan Black developing here that is perhaps blinding you to the underlying simplicity (moral and factual) of this issue. Note I’m being generous in my interpretation of your motives.
Well, so we’re talking only about direct contributions by Abramoff? That’s, what, 200000 dollars, all to Republicans? Small potatoes, so we get the guys who took illegal contributions and move on. But we will never end, or even shrink, corruption in Washington until we are ready to devolve power, both regulatory and funding, away from Washington. And both parties have a vested interest in growing the government’s power (ironically, so that they can be more corrupt, so as to buy more votes). So it’s lose:lose. It doesn’t matter, in terms of reducing corruption, whether Republicans or Democrats are in power. All that matters is how much money and regulatory power they can throw around.
If the Federal government didn’t have the power to give millions of dollars to Indian tribes through regulation of Indian cas inos, or more likely prevention of competition for the cas inos, do you think that this scandal would have ever occurred?
Sorry about the extraneous spaces. Without them, the post is “questionable content”. Given the gamb ling (I’m just assuming here) spam going around, it’s not unreasonable. Makes it hard to discuss this topic, though.
Of course, when Mr. Black immediately follows Ms. Howell’s name with the phrase, “Ombudsing is hard,” it’s hard not to see this as comparing her to a brainless Barbie doll. Mr. Black is undoubtedly a “progressive,” so he really can’t have intended that sort of sexist slur, could he?
You wrote: “But if you want to presume that the Republican legislators who got his personal cash were somehow less filthy than the Democratic ones who took his client’s cash, you’re morally blind.”
Now I could be wrong, but I believe you meant more filthy in that sentence, not “less.”
Until the investigation is finished and indictments handed down, there is no way to know which contributions from either Abramoff or the tribes had quid quo pros attached.
I think it just looks foolish to say THIS set of contributions is no problem but THAT set is.
If I were a corrupt lobbyist, I’d concentrate on the party in power because they, well, are the majority and have the most influence. But that does not mean I’d ignore everyone else.
I’d be an equal opportunity corrupter, just that at this time the Republicans are a little more equal because they’re the majority.
All 2 democratic senators from Michigan took the money — and won’t return it.
Andy, waldtest…
There are two scandals here which are deeply interconnected – and as much as my fellow Democrats try and parse them apart, it’s not going to fly out in the real word of voters.
Abramoff was a Republican who stole a bunch of money from his clients and used a relatively small amount of the money to support Republican causes.
He also diverted huge amounts of client money as a way of manipulating the political system – and that money went both to Democrats – some of who had genuine Indian constituencies (although I can’t say how freaking funny it is to hear people explain that it’s OK to funnel cash at legislators who, you know, actually legislate about matters that concern you or who represent your geographical area. Obviously there’s no intent to influence decisionmaking in that case) – and Republicans (some of whom also had the same legitimate ties).
He also, using his position and financial clout, appears to have suborned a number of people – legislative and agency staff. It’ll be interesting as well to see how this comes out.
Now this interesting question is whether you want to look at this as a case in which a well-connected Republican stole from his clients and violated a number of laws in so doing, or as a case in which a criminal manipulated the system in a particularly egregious – but not unusual – way.
Take a look at the Congressional poll numbers, come on back to me, and tell me how you think the public is viewing it.
A.L.
In an uncanny way, Jack Abramoff is following a trail blazed by Bruce Bereano–a name unlikely to be familiar to many of WoC’s readers.
In the eighties and early nineties, Bereano was the most influential lobbyist haunting Maryland’s statehouse. Apparently a heck of a nice guy, personable, smart, hard-working. Many of the bills favored by his clients, got passed. Many of those he opposed withered somewhere along the way to a vote. His efforts on behalf of the tobacco industry and similar clients earned him political enemies.
Bereano was indicted in 1991 and convicted 3 years later for mail fraud. “The jury found that he had billed clients for entertaining legislators when what he really did with the money was make illegal campaign contributions to political candidates.”:http://www.newsline.umd.edu/politics/specialreports/ethics/pecontroversy.htm
“Clients saw it differently.”:http://www.bayweekly.com/year05/issuexiii5/leadxiii5.html
bq. The defrauding with which Bereano was charged amounted to $150 for each of four clients: Dental Benefit Providers, Medical Mutual, Phillips Publishing International and the Maryland Saltwater Sportfishermen’s Association. The charge was mail fraud because he’d sent his bills and received payment by mail…None of the four defrauded clients supported the charges, and all testified in Bereano’s defense.
Two aspects of this story should please Abramoff and his minders:
* How Bereano suffered for his crimes, with 5 months in a halfway house, 5 months of home detention, and 3 years of probation, plus 500 hours of community service and a $20,000 fine. His income fell from $900K/yr to $200K. “He has since [2001] resumed his spot as one of the top-paid Maryland lobbyists.”:http://www.newsline.umd.edu/politics/specialreports/ethics/pecontroversy.htm
* The lack of transparency about “best practices” in the business of legislative politics. Bereano’s $600 crime is on the record, but exactly what he accomplished behind closed doors with the other $X million he commanded is not. (At least not to the casual observer of state politics.)
Andy [earlier in this comment thread] is right that Abramoff’s blatantly illegal behavior and its sequelae should be distinguished from the business-as-usual that transpires as Congresspersons prepare for the next campaign. Since Pioneer Jack was a committed Republican, it’s unsurprising that 2/3 of his largesse went to Repubs, and that his (alleged) illegal help flowed almost entirely in that direction. And it’s good to be reminded of the “K Street Project.”
Armed Liberal’s right to stress how sleazy Abramoff’s legal behavior appears, and is. The Democrats’ relative disadvantage at harvesting tribal funds doesn’t seem to spring from any high-mindedness on their parts. Instead, it looks like Abramoff spread his clients’ dough where he thought it would “do the most good.”
The more of Abramoff’s doings that come into the light for voters to see, the better.
The side that appears to work hardest to get clean, wins. Since Democrarts start out “cleaner” they just need to match Republicans one-for-one in purging, and they gain credibility.
It’s simplistic, but the best answers to political/moral questions often are.