Oh my…
OLYMPIA — Sen. Patty Murray said Friday that returning contributions from Indian tribes represented by Jack Abramoff would “taint” the tribes.
The state’s senior senator, a Seattle Democrat, said there was nothing wrong with accepting more than $40,000 in campaign donations from out-of-state tribes represented by the disgraced lobbyist.
Right. Like the tribes aren’t already “tainted” for trying to buy political influence through Jack Abramoff.
Aside from the Democrats insisting that this is a “Republican only” scandal, another thing that bothers me about the Abramoff matter is the constant “don’t blame the Indians” stance that has been taken by many involved with and covering this scandal is sickening. I mean, these people tried to purchase political influence through a corrupt schmuck like Jack Abramoff. Why shouldn’t they be held responsible for that?
And it wasn’t really the Indian tribes who were involved in all of this. Ordinary Indian tribes don’t have the funds to throw tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions at a politician. The people who hired Jack Abramoff were Indian casino people. That’s a very important distinction to make. As anyone who is familiar with Indian reservations in this country can tell you, not much of the gambling money finds its way down to rank-and-file tribe members. I’ve been to several reservations and seen housing developments that would rival even the worst inner-city ghettos for outright poverty and sickening living conditions. Yet these developments often exist within sight of multi-million dollar gambling casinos and hotels, where millions upon millions of dollars are raked in every year.
Obviously, not every politician who got money from these Indian casinos took it on a quid pro quo basis…but I’m not so sure these politicians shouldn’t be ashamed for accepting so much money from such an exploitive enterprise to begin with, political favors or no.
You can read more from Rob Port at SayAnythingBlog.com
Please stop.
Think…Abramoff, Reed, Nordquist and DeLay.
They’re your men…own them.
Ms. Patty woulod fit right into New Jersey politics!
I think the problem we should be worrying about is the growing wealth, power and political muscle of the Indian casinos. It is not healthy for our democracy.
In Minnesota, only the unions spend more money than Indian casinos in buying politicians. Neither party has the guts to cross the casinos.
Fran, think.
Murray, Reid, Dorgan…
Democrats. Yours.
Own them, or be pwn3d.
Fran
Not only are the Republican’s “owning” them, they are “owning up” and going to the mat in vetting their ranks — you haven’t been following the stuff about Roy Blunt, John Boehner and John Shadegg.
Dems are now reduced to “me, tooism” about reform and bare-nekkid perfidy pretending no Dems have anything to do with the Abramhoff scandal — even Reid was forced to apologize for his mendacious hit-piece.
Ah, the cynic in me thinks the Indians are happy about this…they got what the performance they wanted from the pols, and they got their money back.
If they got the results they wanted, the pols should definitely keep the money. If not, perhaps a poor perfomance refund, but not just for publicity.
Hmmmm.
It gets better. Now Drudge has something about Time making insinuations about a few photographs with both Bush and Abramoff together.
sigh.
of course it never occurs to the leftist that if the government wasn’t so large there would be less need for lobbyist. perhaps in the mean time making bribery and accepting illegal campaign contributions a mandatory death penalty crime with no plea bargaining allowed………..
The Indian tribe clients that Abramoff represented contributed more to Democrats before they started working with the guy. He directed more of their contributions to Republicans. The only Indian tribes that gave more to Republicans than Democrats were Abramoff clients. Just because a tribe contributed to Democrats doesn’t mean they did it at Abramoff’s direction. And Patty Murray’s right. Returning donations from Indian tribes makes it look as though those tribes were engaged in something underhanded. I read so much criticism on this board about campaing finance reform, but now all of a sudden the Indians are scumbags for making campaign contributions.
And as for cubanbob’s charge that big government is the cause eof the problem, boo fucking hoo. Tom DeLay and his gang made a concerted effort to be in business with lobbyists, and did everything they could to make sure Republicans were the only ones benefitting. Once again, nobody plays the victim like a Republican.
Chris has been at the kool-aid again.
Tom DeLay and his gang made a concerted effort to be in business with lobbyists, and did everything they could to make sure Republicans were the only ones benefitting.
Which is one of several reasons it’s good he’s gone. Another is that he “went native” in Washington, actually thinking the government was running efficiently and there is nothing left to cut! I only hope that Blunt loses the upcoming leadership election. Blunt is business as usual. The other two, particularly Shadegg, represent a break from that kind of garbage and a return to some leadership in Congress.
Chris has been at the kool-aid again – the kool-aid of TRUTH! Drink deep Chris for it may very well save your soul!
The people who hired Jack Abramoff were Indian casino people.
The people who made Jack Abramoff possible:
Tom DeLay and Grover Norquist.
(cf. The K Street Project)
“Chris has been at the kool-aid again.”
Good argument Darleen. You really put me in my place. Your ability to marshal facts is truly impressive.
And by the way, in response to your earlier comment, the Republican efforts to paint this as a bipartisan scandal are the exact opposite of “owning” the problem. It’s certainly possible that if Democrats had been in power they may have fallen prey to much of the same stuff. But the fact is that they weren’t, and they didn’t. You can’t keep crowing about how the Republicans run everything, and when the shit hits the fan try to claim that lobbyists have just as much incentive to influence Democrats as Republicans. Face it, the Republicans got corrrupted, they let a few guys like DeLay intimidate them and take over their party because they promised an opportunity to stay in power, and now they’re going to pay the price. But as long as they try to pin this on Democrats, they’ll never deal with what’s happened to their party.
So… Sen Murray’s logic, to me, reads like this.
Pimp is caught (Abramoff). Whore (Murray) says she is keeping money, not because she is a whore that provided a service and should be paid for it, but that giving the money back would corrupt or taint the Johns. Oh, and the pimp started working the north side of the street, and even though he did plenty of south side business, it really is a north side only problem.
Now, while many of the other whores are pretending not to be whores and took the money by mistake (yeah, I slept with him, but I thought the money was a gift. He didn’t have time to get flowers and gave me money in lieu), are giving the money back. Murray’s tactic is quite interesting 😉
SCSIwuzzy
The only problem with your analogy is that it’s completely off base. Instead of trying to be colorful, perhaps you could tell us in plain language what is wrong with a politician taking a lawful campaign contribution.