Quote of the day
From Howard Dean on today's CNN’s Late Edition via press release:
“There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, not one, not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money and we’ve looked through all of the F.E.C. reports to make sure that’s true…I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They're scared. They should be scared. They haven't told the truth. They have misled the American people, and now it appears they're stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.”
Why then, Howie, are they all scrambling to give all the tainted money away?
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Hell, Howie could go over to opensecrets.org, and see the the Dem's two campaign committees took over $900,000 from Jack and his clients.
Open secrets gets most of it's info from culling FEC reports. Guess Howie didn't look very hard.
Howie's playing a semantics game. He's technically correct in that Abramoff made no personal donations to Dems.
However, the personal donations aren't the problem. It's the piles of cash Abramoff directed his clients to donate.
There are a lot of dirty hands here, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Dems collaborate with the Republicans to make the issue go away once it becomes obvious that Abramoff is going to sing about both parties.
The difference is that some Democrats took money from Indian Tribes, whereas Republicans took money from Abromoff. Many of them returned the money, including my dear senator, Mr. Durbin, just in case it’s tainted.
When people are involved as die-heart ideologues, it’s difficult to look at the facts. You may be so busy rooting for what you consider to be your side that you overlooking your own true principles. Step back and consider all this carefully.
Thanks for the comment, Sara.
No, I don't think I'm overlooking my principles. The personal donations were limited to a couple of grand, a size not considered large enough to purchase much influence. The real issue for both parties is that members of each took money from the tribes - money offered by the tribes because Abramoff told them to.
$2,000 may be a pittance, but $47,000 is a head-turning amount of cash. That's the amount recieved by Harry Reid.
"Dear" Dick Durbin is donating $11,000 (of the $14,000 he recieved) to charity not because it may be tainted but because it is tainted.
I've defended no Republicans here on the Abramoff issue. If any elected official engages in influence peddling I say kick 'em to the curb. But my posts on the topic have centered on the hypocritical stance the left has assumed. Pointing at Republicans with one hand while shoving dollar bills (from the same source) into their pockets with the other is dishonest.
I think the principles involved should apply equally to both sides, don't you?
I disagree with giving the money to charity, it should be returned to the person or persons that gave it. Donating the money to their charity indicates that the bribe was accepted returning it indicates that it was rejected. Either way its not their money.