Who Is Jack Abramoff?

Slate's Jack Shafer says don't bother asking the Wall Street Journal op-ed page, even though the section ran a scathing "Who Is…?" series pillorying Clinton administration cronies large and small back in the day.

All the traditional themes that populate an outraged Journal editorial can be counted. An out-of-control majority party; dishonest lobbyists; a president who looks the other way; kickbacks and bribes; "shells" laundering political money; influence peddling; corrupt members of Congress; self-dealing; campaign flimflammery; questionable junkets; colorful scoundrels; principals in the scam copping pleas (Abramoff and Michael Scanlon); well-known politicians and political operators being implicated; and tendrils reaching into the White House.

Alas, no scathing "Who Is Jack Abramoff?" editorial has appeared on the Journal page.

Whole thing here.

My question re: Abramoff is whether he represents business as usual or whether he's a mutant lobbyist, a homo superior among homo sapiens (to use Marvel comics lingo). Is he Magneto or, say, Batroc the Leaper, a dime-a-dozen superbaddie with a cheesy mustache and the embarrassing "power" of kicking people really hard?

For info on who Abramoff was throwing money at, go here.

Update: As bubba notes below, the Journal did run an anti-Abramoff editorial today. A snippet:

the Abramoff scandal wouldn't resonate nearly as much with the public if it didn't fit a GOP pattern of becoming cozy with Beltway mores. The party that swept to power on term limits, spending restraint and reform has become the party of incumbency, 6,371 highway-bill "earmarks," and K Street. And it's no defense to say that Democrats would do the same. Of course Democrats would, but then they've always claimed to be the party of government. If that's what voters want, they'll choose the real thing.

Whole thing here.