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.
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Maybe he’s Mephisto, going around tempting otherwise honorable legislators. Personally, I’m inclined to think he’s more business as usual than exception.
Prediction: One or two politicians will be subject to some sort of charges/sanctions. None will be convicted. Politicians will continue to do what they do.
That list of returned donations is good stuff, but it doesn’t break down where the returned money came from. Abramoff himself? Abramoff clients? Sometime Abramoff clients?
And then there’s the issue of donations from Abramoff, or his clients, to organizations other than re-election campaigns. Or, from those organizations to other organizations.
This link is to the FEC filings for donations made by Abramoff himself.
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/01/what-was-that-about-abramoff-giving.html
Fafblog had a great send up on this topic.
Of course Batroc loses all his fights. He specializes in French kickboxing.
Here’s the WSJ editorial they wanted.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007778
“Here’s a better strategy: Banish the Abramoff crowd from polite Republican society, and start remembering why you were elected in the first place.”
I doubt that would work, Bubba. Lobbyists are like H.Y.D.R.A., kill one, and two more rise to take his place.
Zats “Batroc Zee Leap-air” mon capitan!
Also: No Marvel villain is lamer than Kangaroo II
http://www.spiderfan.org/characters/kangaroo2.html
The point of this posting was that the WSJ had not condemned the GOP hooligans. Today they did. Whether or not this is useful is a separate question.
That is true, bubba. And now we know: the WSJ will condemn a Republican bad actor when he is found guilty of a crime, and will even go so far as to look askance at those he implicates during his allocuation, before sentencing.
Short of that, they will continue to stand by their man, as with the dig about Ronald Earle’s investigation of Delay being a partisan witch hunt.
Not having read the Journal at the time, I have to ask: was this the standard they used when writing the “Who is…” columns Shafter refers to?
Joe,
The WSJ is a conservative publication. The NYT is a liberal one, but claims otherwise.
Would that be the NYT that ran long, finger wagging editorials about Monica Lewinsky for months on end?
Yes, you are right. The NYT is a liberal newspaper, and it regularly bashes liberals. The WSJ is a conservative newspaper that holds it fire against conservatives as much as they can.
Or, to put it another way, “The WSJ is a conservative publication. The NYT is a liberal one.”
For a rag that claims to be from Wall Street, they sure don’t get the concepts of supply and demand.
As David said above: Lobbyists are like H.Y.D.R.A., kill one, and two more rise to take his place.
Yep, supply tries to meet demand.
That’s why the WSJ is childishly naiive or falt out lying when they say “If that’s what voters want, they’ll choose the real thing.” We’ve got two parties that, no matter what they say publicly, in action can’t get enough of that lobbyist action. Does the WSJ honestly think there’s a viable third party out there that wants nothing to do with lobbyists??
From the WSJ
That some Republicans are just as corruptible as some Democrats won’t surprise students of human nature. But it is an insult to the conservative voters who elected this class of Republicans and expected better.
Scratch the words “insult to” and replace them with “fair metric of the gullibility of” for greater accuracy.
To say these actions are an “insult to” these voters is to impute to them some kind of imaginary demand for high standards in governance; as oppposed to the actual demand they have for being pandered to, hearing loud angry sounding speeches, empty platitudes, stupid partisan rhetoric, and silly little american flags.
The WSJ’s assertion that Abramoff and Delay’s tactics are “Washington business as usual” is spin. The heart of this case is the K Street Project, which was the novel brainchild of this particular Congressional leadership and its movement conservative supporters.
And how did y’all like the assertion that people who hire lobbyists are primarily working to stop the government from taking away their freedom and money?
Props to my hometown newspaper, which Nick Gillespie helpfully linked. The last argument we had centered on whether this was a “Republican” scandal or a “Bipartisan” one. Using the money returned in the Star-Tribune story as a statistical sample we get:
-in the House, 387349 for the GOP and 106592 for the Dems;
-in the Senate, 286000 for the GOP and a 21250 for the Dems
The House GOP total is skewed by the whopping 150000 Conrad Burns gave back.
But it’s also worthwhile not to consider just the totals, but the egregious totals. That is, setting the arbitrary level of 5000 to clear out the small fry, how many in each party might be shown to be the big winners in the Abramoff bazaar? We get 24 Republicans returning more than 5000 and just 5 Democrats. It’s possible the Republicans were more deeply shocked by the excesses and more anxious to set things right, but it’s more likely they simply got a hell of a lot more money.
Props also to the GOP’s Davic Vitter of Louisiana, who returned his money back in 2002, before it was cool. I guess in Louisiana successful politicians got a sixth sense for investigations that are going to turn out badly.
James,
I don’t know how long the payouts took place, but maybe the GOP could charge more because they were in power…
As Joe said, the K-Street project is indeed at the heart of the matter. See http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18075.
I would like to hear some of the people who oppose campaign finance restrictions to tell me why an organized and public effort by the party currently in power to directly link lawmaking to campaign donations is a good thing, even if legal?
The real story of Abrahmof is the dsigusting cesspool that is Indian Casino gambling. The tribes are sovereign and immune from state regulation and can play the race card whenever anyone tries to look at the books.
John: So you’re saying, on the scale of public concerns, corruption in Indian casino gaming ranks higher than corruption of Congressmen?
In high school they called him “Abraham Jackoff” which is why he turned to his life of crime.
Joe:
Lobbyists do perform an important function of protecting people’s freedom and money. Congressman often have to be given a reason to vote against something rather than a reason to vote for it. When a lobbyist comes in and says, “wait, do you realize what this is going to do to [insert group]?” many congressman often reply, “oh my goodness, i had no idea.”
Let’s also remember that that executive branch and state governments all have lobbyists and will no matter laws are passed (the exec branch agencies even have liason offices within the capitol office buildings. how’s that for access?) and someone has to be allowed to present the other point(s) of view. Many lobbyists work for trade associations that represent many small businesses and other organizations that do not have the resources to get to DC every time some threatening bill gets introduced (or even the resources to know that these laws are being introduced in the first place). Lobbyists play the extremely important role of letting members of congress know how their laws are working, or are going to work, in the real world.
Let’s also not forget that the constitution guarantees people the ability to petition government for the redress of grievances, which is a fancy of describing what lobbyists do for their clients.
There are sleezy and corrupt lobbyists, certainly, but no more than in any other field (except government, i guess).
Ron,
In a way yes. The currupting force in this instance in Indian gaming. That is what Abramoff was into and what he got convicted of. Its not the only corruption going on that is for sure, but it is the corruption that mostly relates to Abramoff.
The fact is that the majority party will always be plagued with crooks because they have the power. If you are a crook, why bother with the minority? The only way long term to stop this kind of thing is to radically decrease the size of government. As long as there is a couple of trillion dollars of public largess floating around there will always be a Jack Abramhof around to want to steal it regardless of who is in power.
What? No Love?
The WSJ’s assertion that Abramoff and Delay’s tactics are “Washington business as usual” is spin. The heart of this case is the K Street Project, which was the novel brainchild of this particular Congressional leadership and its movement conservative supporters
In other words, Abramoff’s activities aren’t “business as usual” because the corruption was planned by Republicans instead of, as has historically been the case, Democrats. The WSJ noted that fact, so I’m not sure what you’re complaining about.