U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released a report with supporting documents alleging that disgraced and convicted uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff had extensive contacts with senior White House officials, including Rove. Having experienced Congressional reports first hand, I know that they are motivated by politics, often inaccurate, usually based upon hearsay, and sometimes simply dead wrong. But in this case, we have the actual e-mails between Abramoff and Rove, Ken Mehlman (current partner at Akin Gump and former political director in the White House), and others.
Boy is there some disgusting, but strangely entertaining, stuff in those e-mails. As a whole, reading the Abramoff e-mails makes me feel as Upton Sinclair must have felt upon first viewing Chicago's turn of the century meat packing industry. 
For example, when describing some of his most lucrative clients, Native American tribes, he says: "I told cherokee to come up with the dough or prepare for another trail of tears !!! :)" (smiley face in original).
The redeeming quality to reading through the e-mails is the knowledge that Abramoff, with all his hubris and corruption, is now sitting in federal prison. But at the end of the day, it is not Abramoff who is the most disgusting, but rather the supposed public servants who accepted streams of tickets, meals, and other things of value to take actions for the benefit of Abramoff's clients.
Was this Administration uniquely receptive to this approach? Or did we just get lucky that Abramoff tripped himself up on a Casino boat deal gone bad, giving prosecutors the leverage they needed to pry open the lid on the sausage factory?
3 comments:
Melman works for Akin Gump, as in Akin to (Forest) Gump. This is a hamfisted way of saying, stupid is and stupid does.
Stupid's not the right word. These guys were clever and talented. Remorseless, maybe. Arrogant, sure. Stupid? Not so much.
Great work.
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