Friday, May 15, 2009 9:28 AM
Abramoff Scandal Lives On
From this week's National Journal: (subscription)
- More than five years after the public corruption scandal that bears his name broke in Washington, former lobbyist Jack Abramoff remains imprisoned at the federal correctional institution in Cumberland, Md. But the Abramoff case is still racking up criminal convictions and causing fallout on Washington's lobbying business, writes Peter Stone.
- On their two top domestic priorities, President Obama and leading congressional Democrats this week executed pincer movements that allied them with traditional adversaries in business and potentially isolated congressional Republican opponents. These maneuvers on health care and energy could signal a crucial shift in Washington's tectonic plates of power, says Ron Brownstein.
- A 2008 law designed to keep toxic levels of lead out of children's products has spurred a widespread push-back by manufacturers and retailers who say that the ban won't significantly increase safety but will force companies to close and will eliminate the market for used toys and clothing for kids, writes Neil Munro.
- From On The Move: Paul Hatch has just started as a senior vice president with Total Spectrum, a government-affairs and grassroots firm headed by Republican fundraiser Steve Gordon. Hatch arrives from a gig as director of government relations with the law and lobbying firm McDermott Will & Emery.
- From Inside Washington: It's been a heady week for health care reform, with industry executives promising to cut cost growth by 1.5 percent annually over the next decade. Sounds dandy -- until you remember who's talking. Anyone who has battled a health insurance company to pay up on a claim knows the industry's expertise at saving its own dough. Randy Barrett talks to America's Health Insurance Plans.
Free poker money
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Now in Poland we have gambling scandal. Hmm , scandal scandal and once again scandal ...
ed galison
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Stone also didn't do his homework on McCain, someone he clearly lionizes in his book. Why didn't Stone mention that McCain never let any Indian who wanted to say something positive about Abramoff testify before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which Mccain chaired? Why didn't Stone mention that McCain had selectively released a tiny fraction--about 1 or 2 %--of the hundreds of thousands of Abramoff e-mails that McCain had subpoenaed? Why didn't Stone do any real digging. It was well known in Republican circles that Abramoff had funded the smear campaign against McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary. (Abramoff claims he didn't know how the money was going to be spent.) This would explain why McCain may have had personal motives, not lofty ones, in attacking Abramoff so swiftly and harshly. And why wasn’t Stone able to score an interview with Abramoff?
And finally, why didn't the National Journal write a piece about the Chafetz book? Perhaps because Stone didn't want people to know how superficial his book was. Did Stone--the cousin of one of the greatest investigative reporters of all time, I. F. Stone--not have the courage or integrity to review or mention Chafetz' book, because it would have damaged the sales of his own book, released in paperback last month?
ed galison
Saturday, May 16, 2009
The National Journal and Peter H. Stone have written extensively about Jack Abramoff. However, when a liberal investigative reporter somehow managed to persuade Abramoff to talk extensively and without any preconditions, (it was the first time Abramoff got the chance to give his side of the story), one would think the National Journal and Stone might share this with its readership.
The book I just finished reading, The Perfect Villain: John Mccain and the Demonization of Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is a fascinating read. It totally contradicts Stone's book, Heist, which I also read when it came out. Stone buys hook, line, and sinker everything the Washington Post and John McCain say about Abramoff. One would think the National Journal would exercise greater discretion after the media's failure in following Bush blindly into the Iraq war. Stone did no analysis at all, except to repeat what has already been in the news. Indeed, he treats the Post and McCain with reverence. Stone completely misses the fact that there are two kinds of Indians in America: those with and with out casinos. Those without are for the most part poor and unsophisticated. Those with casinos are sophisticated, because they can hire the very best to look after their interests, locally and nationally. Abramoff's tribal clients were hardly gullible, but Stone doesn't question the Post or McCain on this point at all. Stone also ignores the skullduggery of a key Post story, which claimed that Abramoff shut down the casino of a tribe in Texas, just so he could get them to hire him for millions to get it re-opened. The truth is that Abramoff was trying to shut down the casino of a different Texas tribe, nearly 1,000 miles away, which was threatening the casino of his nearby client in Louisiana. The only casino the Post mentioned was the one Abramoff shut down unintentionally. And yet the Post knew about the existence of the other tribe and that it threatened Abramoff’s client but deliberately didn’t mention it. Why? Because it would have fatally undermined its story. Why did Stone overlook this blatantly fraudulent story?
michelle
Friday, May 15, 2009
I wonder how much more you have learned about this whole scandal since writing your book.