For almost a decade I have been tracking and writing about Jack Abramoff and the Culture of Corruption.
Since 2006, I’ve written about the many ways that John McCain covered-up the Abramoff Scandal. Usually these Diaries are very long and linked filled. They are rich in details and I’ll add a list of some them after the jump.
But this is campaign season and McCain’s cover-up of the scandal needs to be stripped down and simplified if it is to break through and impact this election.
Recently, the Obama campaign released an ad that got me thinking about ways to condense the story of McCain’s cover-up of the Abramoff scandal. Here is the ad:
Nice. And so, I’ve tried to reduce my many McCain/Abramoff Diaries to seven Power Point slides.
To the jump...
In a nutshell, John McCain covered-up the crimes of his Republican Party in the Abramoff Scandal. He washed the narrative. He made it a simple story of a "bad apple" greedy lobbyist, gullible Indians and the straight talking maverick Senator who saved the day. It was all bullshit.
John McCain is a Corruptionist. For those without a dictionary, that means that he is a politician who has protected and upheld corrupt practices throughout his political career.
His dirty work is obscured by his carefully constructed myth as a "maverick" and his false mask of a reformer. It is all hype. His reputation is built on a twisted web of lies and protected by a legion of well trained sycophants in the media.
His work to cover-up the Abramoff Scandal deserves exposure.
Over the months, I’ve written a number of Diaries that have tried to do just that. Here are a few of them:
Corrupt Sleazebags in bed: Ralph Reed hosts McCain Fundraiser...
John McCain and the Wrecking Crew...
No Surprise: Another McCain Advisor Lobbying Scandal...
Gramm, McCain, Abramoff and the Corruptionist Party...
McCain helps Doolittle, Pombo and the Abramoff gang....
The Abramoff bomb drops in September: He is talking and he’ll testify.
New Abramoff Plea is Trouble for McCain & the GOP
Get Ready: McCain is surrounded by GOP thugs
Trouble for McCain: Jack Abramoff, Charlie Black & the 1980s...
For those who seek details and links, please review the Diaries listed above. But, for those who want the highlights, I’ve put together the following seven slides (one for each of McCain’s houses).
Here we go:
We have a lot of power. We can find and push out stories to impact this campaign. The story of John McCain and the Abramoff Scandal is one of those stories that should come to the surface this fall.
For example, it is amazing that McCain’s advisor Randy Scheunermann was hired by Abramoff’s old lobbying firm to "advise" Greenberg Traurig on how to "work" with McCain’s "investigation". Here is how the NYTs explained it:
"After Greenberg Traurig severed ties to Mr. Abramoff, Mr. Scheunemann advised the law firm on how best to cooperate with the Senate investigation," said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign. "The record reflects that the law firm cooperated."
And did they ever cooperate! Since then the lobbying firm was "cleared" by McCain they have given McCain over $160,000 for his run for the White House. That story alone should make a great 30 second ad.
And the same ads that the Obama campaign ran about Ralph Reed could be run about Grover Norquist, with very small revisions.
And then there is McCain’s investigation and report on Abramoff Scandal for the Senate’s Committee on Indian Affairs. It reminds me of Silver Blaze an old Sherlock Holmes tale:
"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.
It is time for a review of McCain’s work. What was done and more importantly, what was not done. Have any of the tribes been made whole? When you combined McCain’s "investigation" with the slow moving Bush DOJ it becomes clear that the only real product has been the protection of the guilty and the rounding up of the small fish. Sure, Abramoff went down and so did Bob Ney, But Ney is already out and Jack won’t serve his full sentence. Meanwhile, Tom DeLay, Karl Rove and many other of the Abramoff-linked walk the streets and a host of Baby Jacks, trained by Abramoff, feed off Republican corruption in Washington.
These lobbyists and others like them own John McCain and his Party. McCain created the appearance of action, while actually doing nothing. An independent Special Prosecutor with access to the documents collected and sealed by McCain would have exposed the corruption and punished the guilty.
McCain looked the other way. We need to call him on it.
He needs to be exposed.
The week of the GOP Convention should be Abramoff Guilty Plea Week. We should be hitting McCain everyday on his ties to Jack and the cover-up (and I expect that this book will also help to drive the story).
Let’s give the McCain/Abramoff cover-up story some legs.
Cheers