As I mentioned on
PomboWatch, yesterday was a bad day for Richard Pombo.
- His PR flacks had to deal with a very successful appearance by Bill Clinton on behalf of Jerry McNerney
, - then a well covered press conference in which Jerry and George Miller (CA 7) blasted Pombo on his ties to bil oil
, - and The Fix, blogging at the Washington Post, proclaimed that the Pombo Campaign was one of the 10 worst campaigns run by an incumbent.
Actually, the latter was not good advertising for his political consultant, Wayne Johnson and Campaign Manager, Carlton Fogliani either.
Even the revelation that Pombo has yet to come clean about the campaign contributions from Jack Abramoff does not stir up a lot of interest, after all, it was less than $20k that was discovered.
The new money showed up in the first month after Pombo became chairman of the House Committee on Resources (January, 2003) The sources were mostly from other members of the Abramoff Team at Greenberg, Traurug LLP plus contributions of
- $5,000 from the shadowy NewStar PAC (set up by and controlled by Abramoff),
- $2,000 from J. Karen Butler (treasurer of NewStar PAC
- and $2,000 from Maria Teresa Olabarrieta, a lawyer from Puerto Rico who is closely associated with the Franco familty that is the source of much of NewStar PAC money and who is also a contributore to NewStar.
all of which showed up on 01/27/2003.
All of this makes you wonder about how Pombo operates. It is my conclusion that he finds it difficult to separate the output of his propoganda machine (otherwise known as the House Committee on Resources Staff, 6 of which are burining their personal vacation time to campaign for the boss in California) from fact. The fiction that the PR staff spins has been frequently exposed. I tired last year regarding the mining bill revisions that Pombo and Nevada Rep. Jim Gibbons slipped into a budget biil. In relation to the same bill, the Las Vegas Sun slammed Pombo and Gibbons just this week for a report on the relative safety of mercury emissions in the environment.
Yet, none of the local press will pick up on this. They all have some idea that, since these are policy stuff, the public will roll their eyes and turn the page. When they do write something, they use the phony gimic of allowing commentary from Pombo's PR flacks, especially Brian Kennedy (Yes, he is in Stockton trying to keep his job.). When there is objective evidence that says one side of this arguement is lying, then the media owes the public that information and they generally do not give it. I congratulate the Sun for doing so.
Now, if you have any doubt about what is needed to rid Congress of the worst enemy of the environment, just go read what the kid oakland sock puppet has to say.