I’m a GooGoo (Good Government) fan from way back. As someone who believes deeply that government has always had powerful role to play in shaping society, I’m obviously forced to confront the times when that role is abused.<\/p>\n
I’ve believed for a while that the direct financial ties between GOP lawmakers and regulators and the laws and rules they write would be fertile ground for a Democratic party that could clean up its own act.<\/p>\n
Sadly, it looks like that’s not going to happen.<\/p>\n
On the margins, we’re seeing some scandal-slinging by the Democrats, but the issues never rise to the level they should because the slingers are so nakedly partisan that the charges can readily be dismissed.<\/p>\n
Here’s a case in point:<\/p>\n
Over at the Huffington Report<\/a> today, one of the lead stories is headlined<\/a>:<\/p>\n DeLay, Hastert, 31 Other Politicians Paid-Off By Indicted Lobbyist Abramoff To Help Block His Clients\u2019 Rival Casino…<\/b><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now in case you’re not following things closely, Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert are Republican Congressmembers from Texas and Illinois.<\/p>\n Let’s click through to the AP story, which opens with the following:<\/p>\n Nearly three dozen members of Congress, including leaders from both parties, pressed the government to block a Louisiana Indian tribe from opening a casino while the lawmakers collected large donations from rival tribes and their lobbyist, Jack Abramoff.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n and goes on to point out what Hastert did:<\/p>\n House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, held a fundraiser at Abramoff’s Signatures restaurant in Washington on June 3, 2003, that collected at least $21,500 for his Keep Our Majority political action committee from the lobbyist’s firm and tribal clients.<\/p>\n \nSeven days later, Hastert wrote Norton urging her to reject the Jena tribe of Choctaw Indians’ request for a new casino. Hastert’s three top House deputies also signed the letter.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n followed closely with what Democratic Senator Harry Reid did: <\/p>\n Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid sent a letter to Norton on March 5, 2002, also signed by Sen. John Ensign (news, bio, voting record), R-Nev. The next day, the Coushattas issued a $5,000 check to Reid’s tax-exempt political group, the Searchlight Leadership Fund. A second Abramoff tribe sent another $5,000 to Reid’s group. Reid ultimately received more than $66,000 in Abramoff-related donations between 2001 and 2004.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The AP headline, by the way, was <\/p>\n Lawmakers Acted on Heels of Abramoff Gifts<\/b><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So how freaking partisan and cheap a shot was it for the HuffPo folks to take to rewrite the headline as they did – focusing instead on two Republicans?<\/p>\n Look, people get to be partisan and take partisan shots. Democratic drum-beater Josh Marshall is raising funds<\/a> to hire a muckraking researcher. How much muck do you think will get raked about John “MBNA” Moran<\/a>?<\/p>\n But there’s a serious cost to this, which is that the voters see the sleaze-flinging as partisan noise, and ignore the real decay and filth that’s slowly accumulating.<\/p>\n The GOP is too firmly tied to its corporate sponsors to institutionally change anytime soon.<\/p>\n The Democrats could do well in this case – by genuinely doing good.<\/p>\n I’m not holding my breath or anything, but a fella can hope.<\/p>\n Update:<\/b> The new headline is:<\/p>\n “AP: 33 Politicians Received Total Of $830K From Indicted Lobbyist Abramoff And His Clients To Block Rival Casino:”<\/b> Cool. wonder if other folks complained, or Arianna is reading WoC…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Huffington Post misleadingly edits an AP headline. Armed Liberal is unhappy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/912\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}