UPDATED: WaPo Admits Howell Was Wrong

Today's Washington Post contains the admission that should have been posted six days ago.  Predictably, it's buried in the middle of an article about the Post.blog fiasco, rather than in context of a discussion on Abramoff or the GOP scandals ... but it's there.

More below the fold.

On page A8, in an article titled "Deluge Shuts Down Post Blog" (update -- link fixed), the following passage appears:

The deluge, which overwhelmed the Web site's screening efforts, began after Howell wrote in a column published Sunday that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff "had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties."  That is incorrect.

The article goes on to repeat the new GOP spin point that Abramoff "directed clients to" contribute to the Dems -- something for which no evidence has yet emerged, but which may be more difficult to conclusively disprove.  The rest of the article bemoans the general lack of civility on the web.

It's a grudging and small admission of error, but it's a crack in the stone wall.  I doubt the Post will print any further retractions, but the paper is supposed to publish a new column by Howell tomorrow, and it'll likely touch on the "deluge."  If she tries to finagle this point -- namely, that she was wrong when she claimed Abramoff gave to Dems -- nail her.

My guess is that she won't say "I was wrong" in flat, unambiguous terms, but will instead be deliberately vague.  Some variation of her tag line in last Sunday's column (urging readers to "Stay tuned" for evidence tying top Dems to Abramoff's contributions), echoed in Jim Brady's interview with Hugh Hewitt (there's no evidence Abramoff gave to Dems "at this point") seems likely.  If so, we need to be prepared to point out that the Post has already contradicted that assertion.  There were no contributions, the FEC records show it, the Post has admitted it, move on.

To the extent that Howell tries to parrot the new GOP spin that Abramoff directed payments to Dems, we need to make them (1) prove it (so far, I've seen nothing showing Abramoff "directed" money to Dems) and (2) prove that it has anything to do with the bribery scandal Abramoff's dealings created.

It is exceedingly unlikely that Abramoff directed any payments to Democrats.  As has been ably pointed out elsewhere, the tribes represented by Abramoff already were contributors to various Democratic causes.  After Abramoff arrived, they lessened their contributions to the Dems and increased it to the GOP.  This is in keeping with the K Street Projects goal of freezing out the Democratic Party from sources of funding.  

The empirical data showing that Abramoff was playing one side of the street is no surprise: Abramoff was a lifelong GOP operative.  His goal was to crush the Democratic Party, not make friends there.  The assumption that he would have wanted his clients to give to both parties as a means of spreading their bets is contradicted by Abramoff's personal behavior (he never spread his money around in that way), and an unwarranted assumption that Abramoff had his client's interests, rather than his own, at heart.  In fact, Abramoff treated his client's funds like his own personal piggy bank.  There's no evidence at all that I'm aware of to believe he spent any of the money he controlled on behalf of any Dems.

Moreover, as others have pointed out, the Dems had no influence in this GOP-controlled graft business.  'Pubs and their allies wrote the legislation, snuck it into massive bills, strong-armed their members to get it passed, and then got it signed at the White House.  There was no place in the process for Dems, and Abramoff had no incentive to give them one.  Tribal money that went to Dems would not have been part of Abramoff's pay-to-play plans, and there's no evidence that they were.

UPDATE: In this subthread RonK cites evidence that Abramoff did, in fact direct the writing of some checks to Democrats. There are counterarguments to be made, not the least of which is that the source for this information appears to be a Republican lobbyist. But there is information out there, and it will be important to be aware of it to be able to put it in its proper place.

FURTHER UPDATE: Howell's latest column is now on the WaPo website. She complains about how mean everyone was to her, and runs the "what I meant to say was ..." dodge as expected, but her column contains this direct admission:

I wrote that he gave campaign money to both parties and their members of Congress. He didn't.

And this:

It's not a bipartisan scandal; it's a Republican scandal, and that's why the Republicans are scurrying around trying to enact lobbying reforms.

It certainly took long enough, but I don't doubt for a minute that this correction would never have happened without the efforts of everyone who made this issue their own. Good work.

Lest anyone think that this is a huge victory -- it's pretty sad when just getting the truth into a major paper counts as a win. But it does, in three ways: 1. The truth sees the light of day; 2. Our side gets talking points it can use (this is a Republican scandal); and, perhaps most importantly 3. We've found that we can strike back in a way that influences the public discourse, however obliquely. The Republicans didn't get the MSM to reflexively kiss their asses overnight; and we're never going to achieve that same level of obeisance. But we've demonstrated that we can bring the pain, too ... and if we keep it up, they may be a little more wary of spewing out Republican lies next time.