Abramoff Scandal Just Another Enron? (The public is getting played?)

[ProSense]

Catherine Crier

02.23.2006

Abramoff Scandal Just Another Enron?

The Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal spans the globe, from Washington to Scotland to Puerto Rico and Guam. "Persons of interest" include members of Congress, federal agency officials, a candidate for Lt. Governor of Georgia and, of course, individuals at the White House. The web is vast and the relationships politically incestuous and many wonder just how wide and deep the probe will reach.

As the investigation unfolds, we glean tidbits that suggest there is much more to this story than a few Congressional pay offs to help Jack's Indian tribes expand their casinos. There is the Gambino crime family and murder in the SunCruz fraud case and lavish boondoggles to the Northern Mariana Islands. Thanks to Ralph Reed, the religious right and James Dobson pop up in the casino fights, and then we're off for a relaxing eighteen with Tom DeLay and friends on the links at St. Andrews. One minute Susan Ralston works for Abramoff, the next she is Karl Rove's executive assistant. Government aides become Jack's lobbyists who then put their wives on political payrolls who--well, you get the picture. It sounds like a Robert Altman movie...or maybe the Marx Brothers on steroids.


Snip...

If Enron is any indication, these tactics will be successful. A few pieces of low hanging fruit may be sacrificed to satisfy the public and press. Reforms dealing with serious matters like the cost of a Congressional meal may get passed, but I'm not betting on any substantive changes from Congress. It is unlikely we will see important measures to slow the revolving door between government service and lobbying activities or eliminate the sleazy practice of legislative earmarks, or establish a much needed independent ethics board to review Congressional conduct.

Pundits will argue things have always been this way in Washington. Such relationships are just the cost of doing business. Any restrictions on lobbying would be an unconstitutional limitation on the right to petition our government. Balderdash. What is going on inside the beltway is payola, nothing more, nothing less. It debases the process, destroys our democracy, and ultimately, produces bad law. We get rolling black outs in California, a costly health care system only the drug companies can afford, and countless bridges to nowhere. Beyond unethical, this is wholesale criminal conduct thinly disguised as politics. Even if we do not prosecute the offenders, at least let us dispense with the twisted semantics. It is bribery. It is criminal. It is outrageous.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/catherine-crier/abramoff-scandal-just-ano_b_16216.html

Bush/Abramoff/Republican crime of the century, but will any of the really key player actually get served? Will it the investigations change anything?


I certainly hope so.

[napi21]

1. Abramoff will affect politics a lot more than Enron did.

First, you already have Cunningham headed off to the big house. Then you have Abramoff willing to spill his guts. How far it will streach depends on how many levels the prosecutors can squeeze, and how loud they squeal!

Enron is a different animal. Sure it affected everyone in Calif. and almost all the people who worked there, but the average person in GA, IA, VA, WY, just shakes their head and says "OH,, those damn corrupt business guys!" Non business people have a hard time relating to "cooked books".

[ProSense]

2. Agree. What I find strange about the article is

the leap it makes to the connection between Enron and Abramoff. Note the article ends with outrage about payola. WTF. Then note the bio:

An Emmy, duPont-Columbia, and Gracie Allen Award-winning journalist and the youngest state judge to ever be elected in Texas, Catherine Crier joined Court TV's distinguished team of anchors in November 1999. She serves as Executive Editor, Legal News Specials, in addition to hosting Catherine Crier Live, a fast-paced, live daily series, which takes a head-on legal approach to the day's "front-page" stories, which marks its 5th year anniversary this year. Crier, a Texas-bred independent with a spirited passion for justice, released her first book, the New York Times Bestseller, The Case Against Lawyers on October 8, 2002. In this eye-opening and plain-spoken treatise on the law, Crier shares her outrage at the state of the justice system and calls on American citizens to demand reform. Her second and most recent book, A Deadly Game: The Untold Story of the Scott Peterson Investigation was released March 11, 2005.

rier has hosted episodes of Court TV's signature primetime series The System and numerous other specials such as OJ Simpson: The Live Interview with Catherine Crier, Court TV Investigates: The Laci Peterson Murder, Serial Sniper: The Investigation, The Skakel Jury Speaks with Dominick Dunne and Catherine Crier, Osama bin Laden on Trial and Safe Passage: Voices from the Middle School, part of the network's public affairs initiative Choices and Consequences. Crier's work on The System documentary The Interrogation of Michael Crowe was recognized with a duPont-Columbia Award, and Crier has received three Gracie Allen awards, presented by the Foundation for American Women in Radio and Television, for Outstanding Program Host, Outstanding Talk Show, and for the Catherine Crier Live special, Grandmothers: Voices from Oklahoma City.


Prior to joining Court TV, Crier anchored The Crier Report for Fox News Channel, a live, hour-long nightly program, during which she interviewed celebrities and the leading newsmakers of the day. Crier joined FNC after spending three and a half years at ABC News, where she served as a correspondent and as a regular substitute anchor for Peter Jennings on ABC's World News Tonight, as well as a substitute host for Ted Koppel's Nightline. She also worked as a correspondent on 20/20, the network's primetime news magazine program. Crier was awarded a 1996 Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism for her work on the segment "The Predators" which examined nursing home abuses throughout the United States.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/contributors/bio.php?nick=catherine-crier&name=Catherine%20Crier

This article seems a pitch to dampen expectations and create a sense that nothing will change and it's all just politics. Wrong!