Mr. Abramoff's Meetings, Again (NYT Edit)

[kpete]

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?

........................

There are any number of matters of legitimate inquiry and public concern involving Mr. Abramoff and his White House dealings that might not rise to the level of a criminal prosecution. Mr. Abramoff has admitted bribing public officials. He collected at least $100,000 for Mr. Bush's reelection. He took David H. Safavian, then the chief of staff at the General Services Administration and later the administration's top procurement official, on a luxury golfing trip to Scotland; it was, as Mr. Abramoff said in an e-mail, a "total business angle."


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.

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

[boobooday]

1. YES

The photos are all well and good (but don't expect Jack to be wearing a beret and getting a kiss on the cheek).

They are not the point.

Abramhoff was on Bush' transition team, a major fundraiser who attended many "staff level" meetings, as Snotty Scotty has disclosed. He was also a strategist who worked with two other total sleazeballs, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist, to swindle votes, money, whatever, out of religious people and Native American tribes.

This is about SO MUCH MORE than pictures.

And if the press continues to focus only on the pictures we will get nowhere. The Freepers have a picture of Al Gore with Fred Phelps, for God's sake.

Follow the MULA$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

[NoFederales]

2. A Thousand Pixels of Light? Seriously, the $$$$$$ corrupting the

system is the big picture, and the Public's tolerance for a double standard for Republicans vs Democrats.

NoFederales

[Pirate Smile]

3. Psst, Wash Post not NYT.