I was sickened to see
Lou Dobbs spend several minutes lambasting Democrats for not giving back the money donated to them by Abramoff
victims clients.
He's playing right into the false idea that Democrats are just as corrupt as Republicans in this scandal.
I'm asking Kossacks to send Lou a message asking him to portray this Republican-only scandal accurately.
He started out by putting a list of half a dozen or so Democratic congresspeople who had received donations from Abramoff clients, and started ripping into them for refusing to give the money back.
(transcript)
More than 70 of our lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, are rushing to return tainted campaign cash from lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his clients. Lawmakers have so far coughed up more than $700,000 of donations out of an estimated 4.5 million handed out by Abramoff and his clients the last five years.
But other Congressman, many of them Democrats, flatly refuse to give that money back. Those include Congressman Patrick Kennedy, who received some $42,000 in Abramoff client donations, Senator Debbie Stabenow, who received 4,000, Senator Carl Levin, $2,000, Congressman John Dingell, Congressman John Doolittle and Senator Patty Murray also refusing to give that money back.
And, as previously reported here, the leading Democrat in the Senate, Minority Leader Senator Harry Reid refuses to give back $61,000 in donations from Abramoff's clients. Other Congressman on the fence, Senator Arlen Specter for one says he can't decide whether to give back $6,000 in net cash.
To his small credit, Dobbs did specifically say the Democrats got money from Abramoff clients but he still made it sound like they had all done something wrong.
Let's see who he gets on to discuss this:
Joining me now to help sort all of this out, parsing, if you will, ethics and campaign cash, Joe Klein, "Time Magazine" columnist, former White House political director Ed Rollins, "Wall Street Journal" columnist John Fund. Gentlemen, good to have you here.
That would be a centrist edit: fake centrist (Klein), a Reagan official (Rollins) and a WSJ/Fox hack (Fund). Great range of viewpoints Lou.
ROLLINS: Historically when a party gets wiped out it's because their own voters get irritated. And if Republicans feel these guys haven't cut the budget, they are not living up to the ethical promises they made, and they are just like a bunch of Democrats, why should we even bother to vote. And at the end of the day if they don't turn out and vote, then there will be some changes. Note: yeah, right, so when republicans become corrupt, they're "acting like democrats"
KLEIN: But never under estimate the ability of Democrats to blow a promising situation. I mean, we don't know how this thing is going to--how this is going to look by next fall.
...
FUND: And his centerpiece is pork. A lot of the problems that Abramoff created was because he was able to get small bits of pork buried in the budget with no accountability. That's what the real problem is. The problem the Democrats have is they like the pork, too.
None of his three guests made any effort to stress this is a republican scandal, and none of them raise the point of why Reid and the other democrats are under any moral obligation to return the donations they received from Abramoff's clients.
As for Lou, he doesn't even specifically quote any of the politicians he names, or even suggest he tried to get any of them to appear on his show to speak for themselves.
The segment digresses into Alito for some reason, and there are some gems of stupidity there I won't discuss here, but Lou finishes with his guests by saying:
Coming up at the end of this broadcast, I'm going to have a few strong words about that corrupt swamp that we call Washington and for those tender members of Congress who seem to have rather flexible principles.
I won't quote his editorial, but it's just a critique of the lobbyist system in general, and effect of money in politics to shut out average citizens from having influence on policy. All fine points of discussion, but I'm furious that Dobbs is playing down the Abramoff scandal into some sort of everyone's doing it business-as-usual thing in Washington.
I want everyone to mail Dobbs and at least ask him to explain on the air what did the Democrats in question do wrong, and why. Is it guilt-by-association? So, Lou, if your lawyer commits a crime, are you tarnished? Should we doubt your credibility then? Please explain what crime these Native tribes committed in being bilked by Jack Abramoff, such that their legal donations to Democratic politicians should be returned. Please explain how Democrats are implicated in this scandal.
P.S. I also would like to see Harry Reid make a statement saying "I will not return money given in good faith from Native Americans who were victimized by Jack Abramoff. They have every right to donate money to politcians of their choice, and I will continue to work for the disadvantaged citizens of Nevada, including the Native American tribes." He's the most prominent Democrat, and the media loves using him to imply that Democrats are just as corrupt as republicans. Giving the money back would be a tacit admission of guilt. Stand up for these Native Tribes Harry.