The Abramoff Potluck Supper

Tiny shows up again in the pre-dawn hours to lobby for breakfast, rapelling along the bottom of the couch and then applying the "think system" -- staring at us -- another longed-for sign that she is on the mend as energy and desire to influence the course of events return. The minute the food is consumed, she's vanished, another good sign. Totally attuned to recent prior experience, she associates the end of breakfast with having to take her medicine -- you don't want to go there. A quick check reveals our Sunny Sunshine has gone undercover by leaping up to the platform over the shower (above photo).

"None of this is sort of a quid pro quo, but it's part of doing business," says Charles Brain in a C-Span rerun of the former Legislative Affairs Director in the Clinton Administration's American University speech Friday:

The opposition party has increasingly become the enemy, as opposed to someone one simply disagrees with.

A very sympathetic fellow, well worth listening to for insight into the dynamics of the time-honored/dishonored lobbying process. There's a groaning board of food for thought out there, with everyone on both sides of the great divide contributing a favorite homemade entrée or side dish to the Abramoff Potluck Supper. The bottom line for Republicans looking to stay in power seems to be that Tom Delay and earmarked porkbarrel projects must go. As we referenced yesterday, many will be looking to the spoonful of sugar offered by John McCain & others' "reform" measures to help the medicine go down as the Augean Stables are once again cleaned out till the next time. Kathleen Parker provides one of the tastier casseroles in her Townhall piece this morning:

Start with the characters, a surreal hodgepodge of caricature, including: el capo Abramoff, the gangster in too-tight overcoat and fedora striding from the courthouse, grim-faced and missing only a cigarette dangling from his lips; a variety of politicians and K Street lobbyists, all looking like they just remembered they left a porn site up on their mother-in-law’s computer; and, not to leave anyone out, Indians -- that most sacred of all American victim groups.

Oh, wait, and the Christian activist, Ralph Reed, who worked with Abramoff to get an Indian casino shut down in El Paso, Texas, after which Abramoff convinced the same tribe to pay him to get it reopened.

No fiction writer could improve on that story line: Washington and the Christians shaft the Indians . . . again.

Peace pipe, anyone?

Comments

[goomp]

As Winston said, democracy, the worst form of government except for all the rest.

[Barry Campbell]

Lord Acton was right: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I'm an old-school Republican; I believe in small government and responsible spending of taxpayer dollars.

But I'm also a realist about human nature, and it dissapoints, but does not surprise me, that once the GOP became the party in power they developed a love affair with Big Government and big spending.

And, of course, the lobbyist dollars that go along with Real Power.

It was only a matter of time before the corruption scandals hit; it's hard to keep your hands out of the cookie jar, as any five year-old knows.

A good housecleaning would seem to be in order. And plenty of sunlight, which is the best disinfectant. DeLay needs to be thrown off the train right now, and he's just one entry on a long list.