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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (17347)	2/13/2006 10:36:30 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

WOW! Mark Levin And Another Thing . . . Shocking photos of the president with ... is that Abramoff way off in the background? Is this really the best Time Magazine can do? levin.nationalreview.com time.com

To: Sully- who wrote (17347)	3/9/2006 1:36:21 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

ABRAMOFF: "MY SO-CALLED RELATIONSHIP WITH BUSH" Byron York The Corner One of the major questions of the Jack Abramoff affair is whether there is more of a connection between President Bush and the disgraced lobbyist than the White House has let on. Democrats have worked overtime to suggest that there is, and there has been speculation that photographs of Abramoff with the president would be politically damaging. But a new article in Vanity Fair, based, in part, on an interview with Abramoff, suggests that there isn't much there. The White House has said that Bush's contacts with Abramoff were of the grip-and-grin variety, mostly at fundraisers. In Vanity Fair, writer David Margolick outlines Abramoff's rebuttal of the president's story. And this is it: <<< "I, frankly, don’t even remember having my picture taken with the guy," [Bush] has said. But how about those 10 or so photographs of him with Abramoff, or with Abramoff’s sons, or of Laura Bush with Abramoff's daughters, apparently taken during all of those meetings that never took place? And the time when the president joked with Abramoff about his weight lifting: "What are you benching, buff guy?" How about the invitation to the ranch in Crawford, where Abramoff would have joined all of the other big Bush fund-raisers? Abramoff didn’t go to that -- it fell on the Sabbath, which, as an Orthodox Jew, Abramoff observes -- but how about that speech Bush gave to big donors in 2003, when Abramoff sat only a few feet away, between Republican senators George Allen (Virginia) and Orrin Hatch (Utah), and was the only lobbyist on the dais? >>> The description of the pictures suggests the kind of grip-and-grin photo opportunities that the White House has described. The "buff guy" quote suggests Bush's grip-and-grin photo-opportunity patter. And the invitation to the ranch, we know, was one in which Abramoff was invited, along with 350 other Bush donors, to a fundraiser -- not exactly an intimate get-together. Then, later in the article, Abramoff himself downplays his contacts with Bush, referring to his "so-called relationship" with the president and the "very few times" he was at the White House. Discussing the brouhaha over photographs of him with Bush, the article says of Abramoff: He blames the Bush administration for the fuss. "My so- called relationship with Bush, Rove, and everyone else at the White House has only become important because, instead of just releasing details about the very few times I was there, they created a feeding frenzy by their deafening silence," he says. "The Democrats, on the other hand, are going overboard, virtually insisting I was there to plan the invasion of Iraq. This is why this nonstory grabbed headlines for weeks." http://corner.nationalreview.com/06_03_05_corner-archive.asp#091891

To: Sully- who wrote (17347)	3/10/2006 10:19:17 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Instead of perusing the guest book for people that Grover Norquist invited to a speech, perhaps the Times might be interested in how direct donations bought government action. Its silence on Reid speaks just as loudly as its dishonest and deceptive report here on George Bush. Gray Lady Pushes Guilt By Indirection, Ignores Corruption By Captain Ed on National Politics Captain's Quarters The New York Times tries mightily to attach Jack Abramoff to George Bush in today's paper but misses wildly. Despite headlining Philip Shenon's report with "$25,000 to Lobby Group Is Tied to Access to Bush", the money never went to Bush or any funds connected to him, and all it got was an invitation to an event in which George Bush gave a speech: <<< The chief of an Indian tribe represented by the lobbyist Jack Abramoff was admitted to a meeting with President Bush in 2001 days after the tribe paid a prominent conservative lobbying group $25,000 at Mr. Abramoff's direction, according to documents and interviews. The payment was made to Americans for Tax Reform, a group run by Grover G. Norquist, one of the Republican Party's most influential policy strategists. Mr. Norquist was a friend and longtime associate of Mr. Abramoff. The meeting with Mr. Bush took place on May 9, 2001, at a reception organized by Mr. Norquist to marshal support for the president's 2001 tax cuts, which were pending before Congress. About two dozen state legislators attended the session in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds. The meeting was called to thank legislators for support of the tax-cut plan, an issue on which the tribal leader had no direct involvement. Mr. Norquist attended the meeting, along with Mr. Abramoff and the tribal leader, Raul Garza of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas. It is not clear what role, if any, Mr. Norquist played in getting Chief Garza into the meeting, and there is no suggestion that the White House was aware of the $25,000 payment. >>> It's this last paragraph that makes the story and the headline a lesson in half-truth and deceptive writing. Abramoff did not direct the money to the White House, but an independent advocacy group for tax relief. The Times can't even connect the payment to any explicit action on the part of Grover Norquist, let alone the Bush administration. And the "meeting" that Chief Garza attended turns out to be a large gathering for a Bush speech, not some policy-setting tete-a-tete where Garza could influence national policy. Even the Times seems to understand the flimsiness of this attack. Shenon writes that the episode "adds new details" to how Abramoff impressed his clients. It proves more that Abramoff's clients were not terribly sophisticated in politics or in lobbying. The Times shows no government action in return for this very expensive ticket to a speech, but it does mention that Garza managed to get a photograph taken with the President -- along with most of the other people at the event, presumably. That's the one where people had to play "Where's Waldo?" in order to find Abramoff in the background, a picture that people claimed to prove Abramoff's influence at the White House. In the meantime, the New York Times has yet to cover the much-closer connection between Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, his four interventions on behalf of Abramoff clients, and the donations made directly to Reid. The AP revealed this over a month ago: <<< Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid wrote at least four letters helpful to Indian tribes represented by Jack Abramoff, and the senator's staff regularly had contact with the disgraced lobbyist's team about legislation affecting other clients. The activities _ detailed in billing records and correspondence obtained by The Associated Press _ are far more extensive than previously disclosed. They occurred over three years as Reid collected nearly $68,000 in donations from Abramoff's firm, lobbying partners and clients. ... Abramoff's records show his lobbying partners billed for nearly two dozen phone contacts or meetings with Reid's office in 2001 alone. Most were to discuss Democratic legislation that would have applied the U.S. minimum wage to the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory and Abramoff client, but would have given the islands a temporary break on the wage rate, the billing records show. Reid also intervened on government matters at least five times in ways helpful to Abramoff's tribal clients, once opposing legislation on the Senate floor and four times sending letters pressing the Bush administration on tribal issues. Reid collected donations around the time of each action. >>> Instead of perusing the guest book for people that Grover Norquist invited to a speech, perhaps the Times might be interested in how direct donations bought government action. Its silence on Reid speaks just as loudly as its dishonest and deceptive report here on George Bush. captainsquartersblog.com nytimes.com query.nytimes.com captainsquartersblog.com breitbart.com