Abramoffmas?

I guess I must be in the minority on this Jack Abramoff plea bargain "nuclear nightmare scene from Terminator II" Extreme Media slobberfest, because I just don't see that it's going to be any different from all the other so-called "Republican scandals" that fizzled before it. Not because no congressional Republicans will be implicated, but because Democrats will prove to have been balls-deep into Abramoff's gladhanding money machine as well.

Case in point:

[I]t turns out that the most prominent player in Abramoff's web of influence was reportedly none other than the Senate's top Democrat, Harry Reid.

In a little-noticed story in November, The Associated Press revealed that Reid had accepted tens of thousands of dollars from an Abramoff client, the Coushatta Indian tribe, after interceding with Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton over a casino dispute with a rival tribe.

Reid "sent a letter to Norton on March 5, 2002," reported the AP. "The next day, the Coushattas issued a $5,000 check to Reid's tax-exempt political group, the Searchlight Leadership Fund. A second tribe represented by Abramoff sent an additional $5,000 to Reid's group. Reid ultimately received more than $66,000 in Abramoff-related donations between 2001 and 2004."

If the Democrats think they're going to use Abramoff against the GOP, they'd better avoid interviews on Fox News like the bird flu:

Questioned about the donations last month by Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace, Reid immediately turned testy.

"Don't try to say I received money from Abramoff. I've never met the man, don't know anything," he insisted.

When Wallace protested: "But you've received money from [one of his Indian tribe clients]," the top Democrat shot back: "Make sure that all your viewers understand - not a penny from Abramoff. I've been on the Indian Affairs Committee my whole time in the Senate."

When the Fox host pressed again on the Abramoff-linked donations, a flustered-sounding Reid continued to stonewall, saying: "I'll repeat, Abramoff gave me no money. His firm gave me no money. He may have worked [at] a firm where people have given me money. But I have – I feel totally at ease that I haven't done anything that is even close to being wrong."

If that doesn't scream, "Thou dost protest too much," I'll apply Hillary Clinton's next batch of bikini wax. Imagine the press reaction if a Republican put on a public spectacle like that. But then Republicans are used to fielding hostile questions, while pols like Dirty Harry are accustomed to getting their asses kissed.

And Reid is far from the only Donk swimming in deep Abramoff (doesn't that sound like a brand of vodka?):

* Reps James Clyburn (D-SC) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) - Longtime House ethics rules that applied to the 1996 and 1997 trips to the Northern Mariana Islands have strictly prohibited lawmakers and their staffs from accepting any congressional trips from lobbyists or their firms. The records state Preston Gates [Abramoff's lobbying firm] paid hotel and airfare for Thompson and Clyburn for travel to the island in January 1997. The two lawmakers filed reports to Congress saying a private, nonprofit group, not Abramoff's firm, paid the travel.

* Indian tribe money, which appears to be at the center of Abramoff's conviction today, went to many Republicans - but also made its way into the following Democratic pockets:

Representative Patrick Kennedy: $128K....
Senator Tom Daschle: >$40K
Representative Dick Gephardt: $32.5K....

* Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) had been the ranking member on the Senate oversight committee that should have caught Abramoff's influence peddling. Instead, Dorgan drank deep from Abramoff's glass:

New evidence is emerging that the top Democrat on the Senate committee currently investigating Jack Abramoff got political money arranged by the lobbyist back in 2002 shortly after the lawmaker took action favorable to Abramoff's tribal clients.

A lawyer for the Louisiana Coushatta Indians told The Associated Press that Abramoff instructed the tribe to send $5,000 to Senator Byron Dorgan's political group just three weeks after the North Dakota Democrat urged fellow senators to fund a tribal school program Abramoff's clients wanted to use.

The check was one of about five dozen the Coushattas listed in a tribal ledger as being issued on March 6, 2002, to various lawmakers' campaigns and political causes at the instruction of Abramoff, tribal attorney Jimmy Fairchild said Monday.

In another post, the Cap'n makes a series of predictions of varying plausibility, the most intriguing of which was this one:

Alito and other nominees get through - The Abramoff scandal so far completely involves Congress and not the executive. When the complete list of legislators tainted by connection to Abramoff gets reported by the DoJ instead of the Washington Post and New York Times, thought to be as many as 300, these politicians will busy themselves with scouring their reputations through positive public works, not negative partisan attacks. Congress will lose much of its influence in the coming weeks thanks to Abramoff and this investigation, and its popularity will descend even further than once thought possible going into the 2006 elections.

I think this halo-polishing will be primarily a GOP phenomenon. Democrats, who are incapable of learning from their mistakes, will pursue their usual scandalmongering oblivious of the yawning hypocrisy that will be all too obvious to the average voter. But 'Pubbies, equally aware of their base's self-defeating fickleness, will suddenly become a lot more cooperative with the President's agenda. RINOism will mysteriously dwindle, and of the roving herds of "mavericks" few will remain brave enough to flaunt themselves.

Or, on the other hand, Hill Republicans might panic and try to please the press by going into RINO overdrive instead. But that's the only way that their majorities will fall into legitimate jeopardy. This Abramoff episode will, in and of itself, be like the House bank and post office affairs of the early '90s - bipartisan spectacles that can only exacerbate weaknesses already present.

And on that score Republicans are still in far better shape than their "friends" across the aisle.