Fergson, Weekly Standard writes article on lobbyists - scandal brewing?

[Democrat 4 Ever]

Andrew Ferguson was on C-Span this morning. I only caught the last few minutes of the program but this guy was wavering between how terrible the lobbyists are in Washington to how lobbyist should have golden keys to the city. He was talking about the misuse and abuse by Abramoff and Scanlon in their representations of Indian tribes and their total disdain for their clients (including racial slurs, bragging about the money they were "stealing" and the perks of the job).

Did anyone catch this program and can they give me a synopsis - did I actually get the gist of this right? Ferguson seemed to think there is a major scandal brewing - then turned around and strongly defended politicians have the ability to lobby after leaving office? The C-Span program showed several emails between Abramoff and Scanlon but are not included in this article. Where were those things printed? (Ferguson is a senior editor for the Weekly Standard and a former speech writer for Bush41 so we can reasonably question his objectivity.)

A Lobbyist's Progress
From the December 20, 2004 issue: Jack Abramoff and the end of the Republican Revolution.
by Andrew Ferguson
12/20/2004, Volume 010, Issue 14

IN HONOR OF THE TENTH anniversary of the fabled Republican Revolution--for precisely a decade has flown by since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, following forty years of Democratic darkness--let us pause from our noise-making and silly-hat-wearing to ponder the story of Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon. They have lately been much in the news.

Abramoff was until recently a registered lobbyist, and Scanlon offers himself as a public affairs specialist, but more precisely they are what Republicans in Washington used to call "Beltway Bandits," profiteers who manipulate the power of big government on behalf of well-heeled people who pay them tons of money to do so. Sometime around 1995, Republicans in Washington stopped using the term "Beltway Bandits."

But they still exist, and how, and if you're a bandito of the Beltway variety, being "in the news" is a delicate matter. You want to be in the news, but not too much in the news. When the low-circulation, high-impact Washington magazine National Journal labels you, as it did Abramoff a couple years ago, "an object of awe on K Street," then that's exactly the kind of news you want to be in. (K Street, in downtown Washington, is where all the lobbyists have offices, just as securities traders used to be confined to Wall Street and drunks to Skid Row.) And when the low-circulation, high-impact Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call underscores your close connections to powerful House Republicans, as it did for Scanlon a while back, that's excellent news to be in, too. But when, on the other hand, the high-circulation, high-impact Washington Post runs stories underneath headlines that say: "Lobbyist Quits as Firm Probes Work with Tribe," followed by "Ex-Lobbyist is Focus of Widening Investigations," well, then, you know you are too much in the wrong kind of news.


you can read the rest of the article at:
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/022nwtca.asp

[cally]

1. kick

:kick:

[cybildisobedience]

2. did see a few minutes of it

My initial thought was great, yet ANOTHER right-wing commentator from Bill Kristol's rag.
Instead, the reporter decried the way conservatives/Republicans rose to power during the "revolution" in 1994, and how they took just 10 years to figure out who to bilk a corrupt system (where the Dems took 40).
He even cited some examples -- Ralph Reed's name comes to mind.
He was highly critical of unprincipled conservatives.

[itzamirakul]

3. Kick