Ed:

I wonder if you could explain why this DeLay stuff is more likely to get DeLay, and other Republicans by extension, than all of the things many of us are actually most angry about? I should say, I'm not doubting that you're correct. This seems like an area of "real politics" where your experience is likely to lead to much better judgment than I (and the rest of the hoi polloi) have. But I really don't get why you and Marshall recognize this as a possible torpedo for many Republicans, where Iraq, the economy, etc. are not. Don't most people assume this is happenning on Capitol Hill? Don't we all think Dems probably did the same some 30 years ago, but with more sex involved?

Again, I don't think you're wrong. I just don't understand what it is that you guys see that I can't.

Ed, I hope the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is checking this out.  In the New Orleans Times Picayune, I read this today by Adam Nossiter of the AP:

A casino-rich tribe wrote checks for at least $55,000 to House Majority leader Tom DeLay's political groups, but the donations were never publicly disclosed and the tribe was directed to divert the money to other groups that helped Republicans, tribal documents disclosed.  Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, now under criminal investigation told the Coushatta Indian Tribe of Louisiana, a client to cancel its check to the DeLay groups in 2001 and 2002 and route the money to more obscure groups that helped Republicans on Medicare prescription drug legislation and Christian voter outreach.

Here's what the tribe's spokesman had to say, showing that he has mastered the art of understatement:

"There's a pattern of trying to keep high-profile entities out of the picture," Coushatta council member David Sickey said.  "To me it tells me that there's some effort at concealment." 

Sorry, I cannot find a link online for this. 

It strikes me that a critical difference is that this is criminal activity that is linked to major players in the conservative world.<div><br /></div><div>On matters of policy, one can agree or disagree and argue and all that, but being right is no guarantee of being successful, and being wrong is no guarantee of failure.&nbsp;<div><div><br /></div><div>These guys, however, are crooks, and particularly brazen ones at that. It's a big deal for that reason alone. The icing on the cake is that the crooks involved have been beating the morality drums for years, using their alleged faith as a club and their self-defined status as &quot;outsiders&quot; or &quot;reformers&quot; as a shield for their particularly egregious criminal acts. As a matter of stated policy and &quot;values,&quot; they have claimed to be the moral and ethical ones and advanced their agenda from that stance -- and yet it is starting to look like they will make other many political grifters look like rank amateurs in comparison.</div></div></div>

DeLay, Santorum, and their associates organized a systematic campaign, closely monitored by Republicans on Capitol Hill and by Grover Norquist and the Republican National Committee, to put pressure on firms not just to hire Republicans but also to fire Democrats. With the election of Bush, this pressure became stronger. A Republican lobbyist told me, "Having the White House" has made it more possible for DeLay and Santorum "to enforce the K Street Project." Several Democratic lobbyists have been pushed out of their jobs as a result; business associations who hire Democrats for prominent positions have been subject to retribution. They are told that they won't be able to see the people on Capitol Hill they want to see. Sometimes the retribution is more tangible. The Republican lobbyist I spoke to said, "There's a high state of sensitivity to the partisanship of the person you hire for these jobs that did not exist five, six years ago--you hire a Democrat at your peril."

In one instance well known among lobbyists, the Ohio Republican Michael Oxley, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, put pressure on the Investment Company Institute, a consortium of mutual fund companies, to fire its top lobbyist, a Democrat, and hire a Republican to replace her. According to a Washington Post story on February 15, 2003, six sources, both Democratic and Republican, said that members of Oxley's staff told the institute that a pending congressional investigation of mutual fund companies "might ease up if the mutual fund trade group complies with their wishes." It apparently didn't matter to them that House ethics rules prohibit congressmen or their staff "from bestowing benefits on the basis of the recipient's status as a supporter or contributor, or partisan affiliation." A Republican now holds the top job at the Investment Company Institute.


the K Street Project is far from complete," according to Norquist, who says, "There should be as many Democrats working on K Street representing corporate America as there are Republicans working in organized labor--and that number is close to zero." He wants the project to include not just the top jobs in K Street firms, but "all of them--including http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18075secretaries."


The Democrats could really make this an issue for the 2006 elections.

Anon, thanks for finding the link to the whole piece by Nossiter.  When I tried to link at Yahoo the page was unavailable.

You wrote ... "the Choctaw and all the other entities that line these oily K Streeters' pockets think that the Congress is for sale. And, they are right."

The same can be said for most Americans nowadays, I'm afraid. Give them ever lower prices at Wal-Mart, cars that use more gas per mile, TV shows that have more and more titilation ... the list of bribes goes on and on and on. Sure, none of the things I mentioned are illegal, like the stuff Congress is doing, but it's all part of the same gravy train of payoffs to keep us from doing what is responsible, only the scale and daring and legality are different. Until we see that our whole system is corrupt, and until we can see that our system is the sum of us, all of us, we can tsk, tsk, all we want, but it won't change a thing.

Did anybody catch that bit? I was watching the replay this morning. Abramahoff actually wrote an email to a rabbi to doctor up awards for him for Talmudic Scholarship so he would look better to get into the "exclusive Cosmos Club" easier. He even suggested that the Rabbi back date the awards.

The sad part is that the rabbi agreed to do it, offering to make up plaques and trophies for dear Jack.

The corruption is not just massive, but petty as well.

The whole K street lobbying industry needs to be seriously investigated a la FRONTLINE.

What we are seeing is just the tip of the iceburg.. or one of the iceburgs... of how money aka corruption are at the heart of the american government.

Lobbyist basically appear to be takers of bribes... who pass them to congresscritters and take a HUGE chunk for getting favorable legislation enacted for the BRIBERS... usually corporate america as either individual corporations or "trade associations".

We got a problem houston... and it is on K street and runs throughout the entire politcal system.  I suspect the corruption is so endemic in the system that almost all the pols are tainted R's D's ... the whole lot of them.

You'll have to go in and do it for yourself... Oh well.