American’s for Tax Reform (ATR), Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, the National Center for Public Policy Research, and Toward Tradition are implicated in the Abramoff scandal. The most damaging material is e-mail correspondence that seems to indicate that the groups funneled money for Abramoff, were paid to place editorials in prominent publications, and routinely charged to provide access to government officials or mobilize their grassroots networks.
ATR and CAGW both accused Baucus (the lead Senate Democrat on the Finance Committee) of engaging in political opportunism instead of addressing the incriminating emails.
I follow the finance committe activities pretty closely and while Grassley and Baucus have very different agendas they are two of the better Senators we have. It seems obvious to me that the almost unfettered power of the Republican administration in the last few years had become fertile breeding grounds for corruption. I don’t imagine that it would have been much better with Democrats in power but the Democrats seem to be incapable of the sort of coordinated action that is required for this widespread level of corruption and abuse (although I am sure that a few Democrats would love a streamlined system of corruption).
Is it just me or does the reaction to this news seem to be “well, that seems par for the course” what do they have to do to start pissing people off? Kill puppies?
I am just kerfuffled. The 2004 election was pretty close (almost 50/50) and then Iraq goes in the toilet and noones really worried about the Democrats taking over. Then we have things like Valerie Plame and other indications taht we may have been misled on the eve of war… nothing. Then we have Katrina… that was over before it started. Then we have Abramoff, Delay, Ney etc… everyone acted like they expected it. Then a congressman sends dirty emails to a 14 year old boy and all of a sudden we go from “the Democrats have a chance of taking the majority in the House but they can forget the Senate” to “the Democrats will very likely take the house and they have a slim chance at the Senate”
Between Monica Lewinsky and Foley’s emails, I am starting to think that we might have our priorities out of whack.
I read about this last Friday (It was front page news on cnn.com) and thought for sure someone would post something about it here, but nothing. I think my outrage meter has burned out and I’m numb from the overload. Probably the same for many others.
From where I’m looking, at the moment any Americans who concentrate on, or vote based on, domestic policy rather than foreign policy, appear to have their priorities out of whack*.
*Applies, alas, to my country’s selfish electorate too.
