Bell Curve The Law Talking Guy Raised by Republicans U.S. West
Well, he's kind of had it in for me ever since I accidentally ran over his dog. Actually, replace "accidentally" with "repeatedly," and replace "dog" with "son."

Monday, January 23, 2006

Abramoff

Okay. There's been a lot of misinformation spread about Jack Abramoff and his ties with the various political parties. Let's try to clear some of that up here.

  • Who is Jack Abramoff? Let's start at the beginning. Some of you may be completely new to this story, so let's introduce you to this man. The Wikipedia article is a great place to start. We find that he is a lifelong Republican, a former chairman of the College Republican National Committee, who helped support Ronald Reagan and Oliver North. There's plenty more in the article, worth a read if you're wondering more about him.

  • What is this scandal? Once again, Wikipedia is an invaluable source. This bit sums it up nicely:
    The Jack Abramoff lobbying and corruption scandal is a United States political scandal relating to the work performed by political lobbyists Jack Abramoff, Ralph E. Reed, Jr., Grover Norquist and Michael Scanlon on behalf of Indian casino gambling interests. The lobbyists are accused of orchestrating lobbying against their own clients in order to force them to pay for lobbying services.

    In the course of the scheme, the lobbyists are accused of illegally giving gifts and making campaign donations to legislators in return for votes or support of legislation. Politicians implicated include Tom DeLay, Conrad Burns, Tom Harkin and Bob Ney. Repercussions of the investigation caused DeLay to decline to reseek his former position as House leader.
    He bribed public officials to gain influence; perhaps you've heard of this happening before.

  • Who is involved? Let's make this clear right now: this is a Republican scandal. As Howard Dean put it:
    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.
    (Video of the above conversation)

    In case you doubt the good doctor, we have a list of Abramoff's donations.

    But wait, you might say. The Wikipedia article about the scandal says that several Democrats received money from Native American tribes linked to Abramoff! What if Abramoff was directing the tribes to give this money to Democrats? Wouldn't that be just as bad?

    Well, maybe, but the fact is that if he was directing them to give money to Democrats, it doesn't show. We have a Washington Post article in which it is written:
    Under Abramoff's guidance, the four tribes -- Michigan's Saginaw Chippewas, the Agua Caliente of California, the Mississippi Choctaws and the Louisiana Coushattas -- have also become major political donors. They have loosened their traditional ties to the Democratic Party, giving Republicans two-thirds of the $2.9 million they have donated to federal candidates since 2001, records show.

    So the tribes affiliated with him did give money to Democrats (as can be seen in this misleading Washington Post graphic), it was certainly NOT because Abramoff directed them to.

  • Why am I posting all of this? Because there is a lot of misinformation about this case going around. Some highlights include:


    • Deborah Howell saying that Abramoff "had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties." Then, even worse, was her "correction, in which she stated: "A better way to have said it would be that Abramoff 'directed' contributions to both parties."

    • Then we have Kyra Phillips sticking up for Howell, saying that what she wrote was true.

    And of course there are others, but it depresses me to try to find them. Just make sure that if you see something like this, you're not fooled yourself!

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the problem is that the journalists are so concerned that they appear "fair." That they include things that either make Democrats look just as guilty or make Republicans less universally guilty even if those things aren't true. If they don't include those things the Republican attack machine goes into hyper mode about "Liberal bias." Well maybe there is a bias - but not a liberal bias in the coverage but a Republican bias in the crime! 

// posted by Raised By Republicans

Dr. Strangelove said...

Thanks, Bell Curve, for the extensive post!! I had NOT realized that it truly was a Republican scandal in every way. Shows you how wimpy the media has become. RxR is correct: when your claim to fairness comes from giving both sides equal time (rather than from a reputation for honesty, accuracy, and objectivity) one has a hard time handling a one-sided truth.

Jack Abramoff, a Republican operative in bed with Republican organizations, bribed Republican congressmen and swindled Indian tribes out of their money. Not one Democrat took money from him. That's about as one-sided as it gets, huh!

Anonymous said...

I think this bending over backwards to be "balanced" even when the facts are not, contributes to popular cynicism and apathy. The press by misreporting these stories contribute to the widely held (and largely false) assumption that "all" politicians are corrupt. In fact, American politicians as a group are among the most honest in the world. That's what makes this Abramoff scandal such a scandal. If it really were "politics as usual" we would never have noticed. 

// posted by Raised By Republicans

Dr. Strangelove said...

Yes, RxR, the U.S. political system is remarkably free of overt corruption. That politicians speak out of both sides of their mouth and pander to special interests to get elected is not corruption... it's just bad for America.

I also think the media are just lazy. Why analyze the facts when you can just quote two competing sources? (They'll even hand you the quotes and talking points so you don't need to do any work at all.) And why bother trying to be accurate and complete when you can simply blame those same sources for any problems that are later revealed?

Anonymous said...

I think another problem with journalists is the way they are trained. Journalists are not typically given specialized training in the areas they cover. Instead, the journalism major has an exclusive emphasis on style at the expense of substance. And there is little effort to "cross train" in other fields.

A letter to the editor of the local campus news paper here once complained about having to take courses outside of the major. This student thought that having to take courses in other departments was a waste of time. The student was a journalism major. That's an example of what has become a big part of the problem. 

// posted by Raised By Republicans

Dr. Strangelove said...

Unfortunately, I don't think the journalism major's attitude is exclusive to journalism. A lot of people feel that way about their majors... and of course, those who feel breadth is unnecessary to their own educations are precisely those who most desperately require it.

Anonymous said...

Geez, it just keeps getting worse. 

"Now there's no doubt Howell made a mistake. She said both Republicans and Democrats had received "Abramoff campaign money."

Technically that isn't correct. Abramoff didn't make any personal donations to Democrats. But he did direct his Indian tribe clients to give money to both parties, albeit far more to the Republicans. It's a distinction without a difference."
 

AAAARGH! I wrote him a note to let him know the truth... 

// posted by Bell Curve

Anonymous said...

Keep in mind that Democrats don't get these sorts of bribes largely because they don't have the power. Republicans control the appropriations process. 

// posted by LTG

Anonymous said...

Agreed...to a point. Democrats don't get these sorts of bribes from Jack Abramoff because:

"It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the left. Our job is to remove them from power permanently." 

Guess who provided the quotes.  

// posted by Bell Curve

Anonymous said...

I agree with Dr. Strangelove's assesment of the normal disdain for libral arts approaches to education. However, in the case of journalists and the problems we're discussing now, journalists' narrow educations are more pernicious. 

// posted by Raised By Republicans

Anonymous said...

Ha! I just had a chance to watch the video and I am laughing at Blitzer- that big sigh at the end. Funny! I agree with RBR, they are stunned when the story is all one sided. 

// posted by unwest

Anonymous said...

Yes, that sigh says it all. Wolf just can't get his head around the idea that Dean had better research than he did.

The Republican attack machine is so good at portraying those in complete power as victims of profound oppression. Jon Stewart once asked a Republican pundit/author, "You've got the House, the Senate, the Presidency and the Supreme Court. What more do you guys want?!"

Apparently they want to never hear any dissent at all. They are like the warden in "Cool Hand Luke." They've got us locked up but they won't be satisfied until we "Get [our] minds right." 

// posted by Raised By Republicans