[Mb-civic] Abramoff and His Vanishing Friends - E. J. Dionne -
Washington Post Op-Ed
William Swiggard
swiggard at comcast.net
Fri Jan 6 03:56:18 PST 2006
Abramoff and His Vanishing Friends
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, January 6, 2006; A19
It almost makes you feel sorry for Jack Abramoff.
Republicans once fell all over themselves to get his "moolah," the term
used famously by the disgraced superlobbyist, and to get his advice on
dealing with that warm and cuddly entity known as "the lobbying community."
Suddenly, Abramoff enters two plea bargains, and these former friends
ask, in puzzled tones, "Jack Who ?"
Over the past few days, politicians -- from President Bush and House
Speaker Dennis Hastert on down -- raced to return Abramoff
contributions, or compassionately sent the moolah off to charity.
There's a scramble to treat him as a wildly defective gene in an
otherwise healthy body politic, and to erase the past. But seeing the
record of the past clearly is essential to fixing the future.
Abramoff, who used to pall around with close Bush allies Grover Norquist
and Ralph Reed in the College Republicans and who has been a central
figure in the rise of Republican dominance in Washington, is not a lone
wolf. He is a particularly egregious example of how the GOP's
political-corporate-lobbying complex has overwhelmed the idealistic wing
of the Republican Party.
Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, insisted on Wednesday
that Bush does not know Abramoff personally. But the record makes clear
that Abramoff was a loyal and serious player in Bush's circles.
According to an Oct. 15, 2003, story in Roll Call, Abramoff was one of a
half-dozen lobbyists who raised $100,000 for Bush's 2000 campaign. When
Bush was battling Al Gore's efforts to recount Florida's votes, Abramoff
was there with the maximum $5,000 contribution Bush was taking for the
effort. A September 2003 National Journal story noted that Abramoff was
so confident he would meet his fundraising goals for the president's
2004 campaign that he was planning, as the lobbyist generously put it,
"to try to help some other lobbyists meet their goals."
The administration, in turn, was open to Abramoff. As National Journal
reported in its April 20, 2002, issue, "Last summer, in an effort to
raise the visibility of his Indian clients, Abramoff helped arrange a
White House get-together on tax issues with President Bush for top
Indian leaders, including Lovelin Poncho, the chairman of the
Coushattas," one of the tribes Abramoff represented.
When journalists would raise questions about Abramoff's role as a
lobbyist-fundraiser just a couple of years ago, Bush's lieutenants
played down his influence peddling and proudly claimed Abramoff as one
of their own.
On an Oct. 15, 2003, CNBC broadcast, journalist Alan Murray asked Ed
Gillespie, then chairman of the Republican National Committee, about
fundraising by "people like Jack Abramoff, who represents Indian tribes
here," and another lobbyist whose name I'll leave out because he has not
been implicated in any scandals. "Are you going to sit here and tell us
that their contributions to your party have nothing to do with their
lobbying efforts in Washington?"
"I know Jack Abramoff," Gillespie replied. He mentioned the other
lobbyist and insisted: "They are Republicans; they were Republicans
before they were lobbyists. . . . I think they want to see a Republican
reelected in the White House in 2004 more than anything."
Roll Call reported on March 12, 2001, that "GOP leaders on and off
Capitol Hill are organizing a new drive to lean on major corporations
and trade associations to hire Republicans for their top lobbying jobs."
The article spoke of a "Who's Who of Republican lobbyists" who had held
a meeting on the subject the week before. At the top of the list was
Jack Abramoff.
Abramoff was always there for his party, with sound bites as well as
money. In a May 2, 2001, article in the Hill newspaper (it ran under a
wonderful headline: "Lobbyists Approve of Bush's Businesslike Style"),
reporter Melanie Fonder noted that "Abramoff said the Bush team's
careful and deliberate approach to leadership is the exact opposite of
the Clinton team."
She quoted Abramoff directly: "The feeding frenzy which started even
before Clinton was inaugurated, and continued to the final pardon, was
perhaps best exemplified by the reckless and unprofessional handling of
his responsibility to appoint honorable public servants."
This careful judge of what it means to be an "honorable public servant"
had reason to prefer the Bush administration's taste in appointees.
After the 2000 election, Abramoff was named to the Bush transition team
for the Interior Department, which regulates the Indian casinos that
paid Abramoff his inflated fees.
"What the Republicans need is 50 Jack Abramoffs," his friend Grover
Norquist told National Journal in 1995. "Then this becomes a different
town." Norquist got his different town. It's why the place so badly
needs cleaning up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/05/AR2006010501903.html
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