Abramhoff

The Republicans and the press are trying to paint the most recent Congressional corruption scandal as a bipartisan one. But it's not. Abramoff and his cohorts went out of their way to cut the Democrats out of the flow of dirty K Street dolars.

This was an exchange between Howard Dean and Wolf Blitzer yesterday:

BLITZER: Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who's now pleaded guilty to bribery charges among other charges, a Republican lobbyist in Washington — should the Democrats who took money from him give that money to charity or give it back?

DEAN: There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff. Not one. Not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican, every person under investigation is a Republican, every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money, and we've looked through all those FEC reports to make sure that's true.

BLITZER: [Stammering] But through various Abramoff-related organizations, and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.

DEAN: That's not true either. There's no evidence for that either, there's no evidence...

BLITZER: What about Senator, what about, what about, what about Senator Byron Dorgan?

DEAN: Senator Byron Dorgan and some others took money from Indian tribes. They're not agents of Jack Abramoff. There's no evidence that I've seen that Jack Abramoff directed any contributions to Democrats. I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They're scared. They should be scared. They haven't told the truth, and they have misled the American people, and now it appears they're stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.

BLITZER: [Long pause, apparently getting direction in his earpiece] [Sigh] Unfortunately, we, uh, Mr. Chairman, we've got to leave it right there.

Note how Blitzer says that money donated by Indian tribes "presumably originated with Jack Abramoff," with absolutely no evidence or basis in fact. Objective journalism at its finest. Mary Beth Williams of Wampum makes an analogy:

In the interest of full-disclosure, Eric and I purchased gas from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe last summer in Michigan. The Saginaw-Chippewa were clients of Jack Abramoff’s lobbying firm. Thus, we here at Wampum have been tainted by the receipt of an Abramoff-linked commodity. Hence, the Koufax Awards must also be tainted, as are all the recipients of Awards from the past four years. And if FEC blog-linking rules go into effect, we’ve poisoned everyone on our sidebar as well. Isn’t that how it works, according to new GOP “they did it too” rules?

I guess I'm guilty, too, as I always fill up my tank in Baraga at the Indian-run gas station there.

A sight I look forward to seeing soon: