WP Editorial: Mr. Abramoff's Meetings, Again (WH needs to come clean)

[Pirate Smile]

Mr. Abramoff's Meetings, Again

Saturday, January 28, 2006; Page A20

IF A TYPICAL picture is worth a thousand words, a picture of President Bush with Jack Abramoff, we suppose, might be worth about 10,000. And so we understand the desire of our more visually inclined colleagues to obtain photos of the president and the criminal. But the focus on the photos distracts from a more important question that the president managed to duck in his news conference Thursday: Who in the White House and administration met with Mr. Abramoff, and what were those meetings about?

It is no answer to this question to say, as Mr. Bush did, that "there is a serious investigation going on by federal prosecutors" and "if they believe something was done inappropriately in the White House, they'll come and look, and they're welcome to do so." It is no answer to dismiss questions about Mr. Abramoff and the White House, as press secretary Scott McClellan has, by calling them a "fishing expedition." If there is one thing that is now clear, anything involving Mr. Abramoff is, by definition, fishy.

-snip-
The president himself attended a White House meeting with some of Mr. Abramoff's clients. How did that get set up? The White House acknowledges that Mr. Abramoff had some "staff-level meetings" there. With whom, and about what?

-snip-
The president himself attended a White House meeting with some of Mr. Abramoff's clients. How did that get set up? The White House acknowledges that Mr. Abramoff had some "staff-level meetings" there. With whom, and about what?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/27/AR2006012701413.html

[Mojorabbit]

1. I really think this is where * will be taken down

He will lose more and more credibility as these scandals multiply but this one will be the big one.

[rumpel]

2. All evidence, other than the disclosed, is probably long gone by now

Unless witnesses come forward it will be very difficult.
What was Abramoff's job description in the transition team? Maybe we have to go way back in time and dig to find something.

grrrrr it is quite frustrating

[kurth]

3. Nothing but "utter contempt for the public's right to know"

From article:

...Republicans didn't tolerate this kind of behavior from the Clinton White House in the midst of its fundraising scandal. "At every turn, they are stonewalling, covering up and hiding," Haley Barbour, then the head of the Republican National Committee, said as the Clinton administration tried to brush off questions about its fundraising before the 1996 election. Mr. Barbour complained of the administration's "utter contempt . . . for the public's right to know."

Such obstructionism is no more acceptable now. The public understands this: Three-fourths of those surveyed in a new Washington Post/ABC poll said the White House should disclose the contacts. "This needs to be cleared up so the people have confidence in the system," Mr. Bush said. Our point exactly.

[rodeodance]

4. It is indeed the WH that has to be interrogated

snip-
The president himself attended a White House meeting with some of Mr. Abramoff's clients. How did that get set up? The White House acknowledges that Mr. Abramoff had some "staff-level meetings" there. With whom, and about what?