Yeah, Whatever
Nov 14th, 2006 at 10:33 pm by Susie
Noted right-wing toady and ABC News political director Mark Halperin must be very proud - his reporters are spreading rumors that Jack Abramoff is going to name “six to eight seriously corrupt Democratic senators.”
See, now, that’s interesting - interesting because the only Democratic senator whose name has been even remotely associated with Abramoff was retired Sen. John Breaux (LA), and that was for one of those deals where a former staffer worked as a lobbyist. Sounds like bullshit to me, because why would he bribe Democrats? They didn’t have any power.
If they’ve got the goods, fine. I don’t want the Democrats to be a mirror image of the Republican corruption. But I just find it hard to believe.
Susie, I don’t think he’s bluffing. The fact he waited until after the election is significant - he’s not playing politics.
Over the past 2.5 years of Abramoff-related research, I’ve come to worry specifically about at least four Demcratic Senators. Not that they took money directly from Abramoff, but that he directed his tribal clients to donate to them. Remember, there are over 500 recognized tribes, of which at least 150 have serious casino operations. Abramoff only had six tribal clients. And those six clients, for the most part, gave mostly to corruptible Republicans. In addition, they were not particularly charitable to their fellow Indians. If they were giving to a few Democrats, it was because they felt, for good reason, there would be quid pro quo.
If they were already donating to some Dems before signing on with Jackie then this is BS. I think Josh Marshall had this put to rest awhile back. If I remember correctly, his clients gave less to the Dems after signing with him.
There’s no need for Abramoff to be so near D.C. Send that punkass beotch to Leavenworth already.
If he wants to cooperate further, I’m sure he can use the computers in the prison library, assuming that he knows how to use email. HA!
While I would love to see this I have my serious doubts that it is actually true. That said if anyone on the Dem side was to caught up in the scandal it makes sense that it in the Senate. That’s because the Dems did have power there with the threat of the filibuster to kill bills. Still though not likely.
This is just a way to trash the democrats now that they have control. If the Justice dept. had evidence of Democratic corruption, Gonzales and Bush would have held a joint, prime-time press conference the day before the election.
This is just a re-hash of the spin about tribal donations to the Dems we heard when the extent of GOP involvement with Abramoff was first revealed.
You guys need to be able to separate what Abramoff did for his tribal clients from what he did for his corporate clients and Republican friends. At least two of Abramoff’s clients, the Louisiana Coushatta and the Michigan Sag-Chip were from states with Democratic Senators. Unlike in other areas where Republican control was enough to push through just about anything, on Indian Affairs, the divide is not partisan, but along who has large Indian populations (particularly tribes with gaming operations) and who doesn’t.
Screwing Indians has been a bi-partisan effort for generations. Abramoff’s clients decided they’d stop fighting the system and start playing the game. If that game included a few Dems, which I believe it did, then we should take them down. That doesn’t mean that 95% of Democrats aren’t overwhelmingly better on Indian issues than Republicans. It just means, that there are bad apples (no pun intended) everywhere.