Agreed. Let’s get all the crooks out of congress.
Like that’s going to happen.
Squink, are you sure you don’t have the Post and the Times confused? The Times is the paper founded by the Moonies and is tenerally considered to be a conservative rag.
Nope. The Post has been carrying it’s “fair and balanced” toadying to the party in power to ridiculous extremes for several years now.
Yeah… and nothing like throwing our hands up in the air to get the ball rolling.
Whatever slant might be there, or not, the paper cites facts that are in the public record.
Are you going to claim that the facts are biased as well?
Do you have any evidence of that?
Well sure. Just read the paper every day since 2002, and you’ll see it too.
Or, you could just look at their bullshit mea culpa on why they pushed the administration’s fake WMD stories so hard before the invasion. You do know they were massively pro-war back then, don’t you?
Here’s a bit of a reality check on today’s Abramoff story.
Regarding the paper citing “facts that are in the public record,” they also draw equivalencies between jaywalking offenses, and criminal trespass.
How is that a “reality check”?
I mean, strange bedfellows, you know?
Aw crap, that doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense does it? Well, we’ve discussed the perception of bias here in GD before, and have determined that it’s a real pain to nail down be it right-wing slant, or liberal tilt. I see it at the Post. Others may not.
Of course, the above investigation is being handled by the Justice Department, which is under the Attorney General, who ultimately answers to the . . . Well, we shouldn’t get our hopes up too much.
The lady on TV yesterday, Alice Fisher, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, is one of Bush’s reces appointments.
See, this is why we need a separately-elected Tribunate. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=264462
Nothing like a good indictment/plea bargain to distract from other investigations also. Hopefully the wiretapping and ‘black box’ prison sagas will stay on the radar.
I also hope the McCain and Feingold can capitalize on this to push their campaign finance reforms. Link to the Washington Post regarding that aspect. I think K street will suffer even more fallout from this then Congress, and rightly fully so.
If we are going to have a fourth branch of government, let it be the press, not the lobbyists. (Nothing against the Tribunate. I would love to see an ombudsman/internal affairs auditor position for the federal government. Slight hijack - this would be a good template - Commonwealth Ombudsman . The Federal Reserve’s status is also a good model.)
I do think certain Democrats will fall in this, particularly Senator Reid. But I definitely see this hurting the Republicans far worse, and this will hopefully, again, trying to have alot of hope these days, be one of the major issues in the Congressional elections. I am sure it will in the headlines until then. And the effects it has on fundraising this cycle will be interesting to watch.
While there are some Democrats who seem to have taken campaign contributions from lobbying organizations that worked with Abramoff, NONE took money directly from Abramoff himself and NONE appear at this point to be the target of the criminal investigation.
It’s worthwhile to point out that the issue here is NOT accepting money from Indian lobbyists. The issue here is BRIBERY and so far it appears that the bribery ring that Abramoff is going to prison for was run exclusively by REPUBLICANS.
We’ll here a lot of noise from apologists on the right over the next few weeks about how this corruption scandal is bi-partisan. It’s not. It’s a Republican operation from top to bottom.
This WP art. goes in depth on the Abramoff/DeLay dealings. Interestingly there appears to be a Russian connection wherein one of DeLay’s front organizations rec’d. a million bucks from Russian sources.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/30/AR2005123001480.html
It’s long, but most of the Russian stuff is on pg. 3.
Well, we’ll see. It will be wonderful if that is so, from my point of view. However, if any Democrats turn out to be involved, I won’t cry for them. The more scum Abramoff can drag down with him, from either party, the better.
Here’s a list of all the political donations Abramoff has made over the last 13 years. 229 political contributions, ALL of them to Republican candidates and Republican PACs.
Hell, George Bush and Dick Cheney are more strongly implicated in this mess than Harry Reid is!!
From the cite du jour, . Quote from the WP: “On March 6, 2002, one of Mr. Abramoff’s tribal clients wrote a $5,000 check to Mr. Reid’s Searchlight Leadership Fund. “There is absolutely no connection between the letter and the fundraising,” said Mr. Reid’s spokesman, Jim Manley. Another coincidence! Mr. Reid’s Abramoff-related total: $66,000 between 2001 and 2004.”
I do not have much love for the Republicans, but they are not the only parties with dirt on their hands. The direct donations may be solely to Republicans, but most of the money at issue is not what he donated personally, but monies he directed his clients, primarily the Indian tribes, to donate. And he was very generous with those sums.
I in no way imply that the Democrats are as cupable as the Republicans, but they will not get away clean either. Their damage may be limited to just the political fallout, rather than any indictments, though that definitely remains to be seen. I am certain Abramoff will roll over on as many people as he can. Whoever he names will suffer political damage regardless of whatever a court rules down the road though.
I still think that the Republicans will lose the most seats out of this mess. And their influence on K Street has taken a heavy blow. (Would you be scheduling meetings with lobbyists this week?)
The Democrats could score more points my admitting their faults, offering up a sacrificial lamb or two, thus deflecting any charges that this will become a partisan witch hunt. They need to convince the public that this is about corruption. The fact that the other side gets hurt more (this time around) is just a side benefit. If they try to make that the sole focus, they will lose.
Well, here’s one Democrat in a hurry to return some money:
Your cite appears to only list Abamoff’s personal donations. Though, obviously, since Abramoff is a conservative Republican, it is the Republican heirarchy which is going to be most deeply involved in the criminal activity, it’s futile to say that there are no Democrats involved in this scandal.