The Pimping of the President (Abramoff link to Bush)

[Guckert]

The Pimping of the President
Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist Billing Clients for Face Time with G.W. Bush
BY LOU DUBOSE

our months after he took the oath of office in 2001, President George W. Bush was the attraction, and the White House the venue, for a fundraiser organized by the alleged perpetrator of the largest billing fraud in the history of corporate lobbying. In May 2001, Jack Abramoff’s lobbying client book was worth $4.1 million in annual billing for the Greenberg Traurig law firm. He was a friend of Bush advisor Karl Rove. He was a Bush “Pioneer,” delivering at least $100,000 in bundled contributions to the 2000 campaign. He had just concluded his work on the Bush Transition Team as an advisor to the Department of the Interior. He had sent his personal assistant Susan Ralston to the White House to work as Rove’s personal assistant. He was a close friend, advisor, and high-dollar fundraiser for the most powerful man in Congress, Tom DeLay. Abramoff was so closely tied to the Bush Administration that he could, and did, charge two of his clients $25,000 for a White House lunch date and a meeting with the President. From the same two clients he took to the White House in May 2001, Abramoff also obtained $2.5 million in contributions for a non-profit foundation he and his wife operated.

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle_new.asp?ArticleID=13
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Much more at link.
$25,000 for a lunch date with the worst President ever. they got ripped off..I bet that dullard put them to sleep with his bad jokes, inappropriate nicknames, and his inability to grasp the English language.
Where is the Lincoln bedroom outrage from the right??? thats what i thought.

[AuntiBush]

1. Anyone that voted for these THIEVES should hang their heads in shame!

[eleny]

2. That is one heck of a good article

I read it yesterday and had to shut my radio off to concentrate on the details.

I am delighted that Grover Norquist may find his nuts on the hot seat. I use his quote in my sig line. That hand lotion sniffing freak deserves what he gets from these dirty dealings.

[seemslikeadream]

3. The Pimping of the President

I just like that headline

[Mokito]

4. Like father, like son...almost

George H.W. Bush, the WIMP President,

George W. Bush, the PIMP President.

[Democat]

5. If it was Clinton, they would be screaming for impeachment

But our side are fucking cowards!

[truthisfreedom]

6. the Texas Observer. what kind of media outlet is this?

anybody know?

[UpInArms]

7. here's their homepage

http://www.texasobserver.org/

I subscribe to the print edition of this publication.

Excellent reporting and a worthy news organization.

Have been reading it for almost 20 years.

edited to add the following:

http://www.texasobserver.org/aboutus.asp

The Texas Observer writes about issues ignored or underreported in the mainstream press, in pursuit of a vision of Texas in which education, justice and material progress are available to all. Our goal is to cover stories crucial to the public interest and to provoke dialogue that promotes democratic participation and open government.

History

In 1954 Houstonian Frankie Randolph - one of the heirs to the Kirby lumber estate and an Adlai Stevenson Democrat - set out to create a newspaper that would cover issues ignored by the state's daily newspapers - issues dealing with race and class and the lives of working people. Ms. Randolph bought the State Observer, brought in Marshall lawyer Franklin Jones who owned the East Texas Democrat, and called Ronnie Dugger to the Driskill Hotel in Austin to offer him the job as editor of the new Texas Observer. He accepted.

From its inception, the Observer went where other publications in the state would not go. Editors Bob Sherrill, Billy Lee Brammer, and Willie Morris helped make the Observer one of the most respected publications in the nation. In the 1970s, Kaye Northcott and Molly Ivins set a standard for legislative coverage that has challenged every editor who followed. And Jim Hightower focused the Observer and its readers on the political economy - anticipating the absolute ascent of the global economy that would occur ten or fifteen years later.

...more...

[Vitruvius]

8. Absolutely excellent. Molly Ivins ran them for a while,

and they have an interesting collection of writers -- including Kinky Friedman...

[quaoar]

9. When Democrats retake control of Congress

They should schedule hearings on this and give Abramoff immunity for his testimony. Can you imagine how much slime would come to the surface if Abramoff started to sing like a canary?

[0007]

10. NYC Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik has got to fit into

the scheme of Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, and junior, somehow.

Kerik is the same kind of cock-a-roach that is extremely sensitive to light.

[donkeyotay]

11. Sheesh, these guys sound like mobsters

<<<snip>>>
Abramoff advised tribal leaders that the contributions were the cost of doing business in Washington, where he could protect them from other tribes trying to open casinos...
<<<end>>>

Sort of sounds like protection money. (Too bad the American people can no longer affort the "cost of doing business in Washington").

Great link! Thanks for the post.

http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle_new.asp?ArticleID=13

[Supersedeas]

12. a lawfirm to remember: Greenberg Traurig (it may come up again)