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Jewish World Review
Feb 7, 2012/ 14 Shevat, 5772
Abramoff's atonement
By
Dana Milbank
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Fallen super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff is out of prison now but still doing penance. On Monday afternoon, he performed the Washington equivalent of donning a hairshirt: He appeared before the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen to field questions from reporters and campaign-finance reform activists.
“If somebody told me a number of years ago that I’d be sitting in this room, in this building, talking to all of you,” Abramoff told those assembled in Public Citizen’s Dupont Circle brownstone, “and not have cuffs on or something like that, I would probably not have believed them.” Yet there he was, looking up at a picture of Ralph Nader – “my entire career was in some way or another opposed to Ralph Nader” – and offering to do what he could “to help those I frankly disdained and those I couldn’t stand, including those in this building.” The disdain was mutual – and it endures. Public Citizen President Robert Weissman, tasked with introducing Abramoff to the lions in the den, did it like this: “Jack is someone who doesn’t need an introduction and I won’t give him one.” But the Naderite group was smart to host Abramoff. He has the potential to blow the whistle on the real scandal: Much of what he did was, and remains, perfectly legal. “I was involved deeply in a system of bribery – legalized bribery for the most part; illegal bribery, unfortunately for me, somewhat,” he said Monday. “And that system, which I took advantage of, which I also took for granted as do many who are still in it, still to a large part exists today.” Abramoff has written a book, done hundreds of interviews and become a blogger for the anti-corruption Republic Report. He points out that there’s little financial benefit to him in this (he owes $44 million in reparations). For all appearances, he has shed his black fedora for the proverbial white hat of the reformer. That doesn’t excuse him for his elaborate efforts to buy lawmakers and staffers or for the millions of dollars he essentially stole from Indian tribes. But he does make a better case for reforms than the liberal activists could ever do. Consider his case for term limits, for example. “I was against that as a lobbyist,” he said. “Frankly I was against it because once you buy a congressional office you don’t want to have to repurchase that office a few years down the line.” And the longer lawmakers remain on the job, he argued, the more likely they are to have a price tag: “Most people start slipping into a corrupt — they fall into the miasma.” Consider, too, his case for ending the revolving door between K Street and the government. Abramoff described his practice of “featherbedding” – making job offers to chiefs of staff in Congress. “I started to notice pretty quickly that the second I said that to them,” he said, “they were so incredibly complimented, that from then on anything I asked was just absolutely granted.” As word of the job offers spread, “it seemed 90 percent of the people I dealt with up there wanted to come work for me.” Often, “they planned to go with me in a year or six months but from that entire period of time they really worked with me anyway. . . . That was an incredible way to control a congressional office.” Consider, as well, Abramoff’s explanation of how lawmakers are bought. “What you need to do as a lobbyist is not buy votes,” he explained. “What lobbying about in large part is becoming friends with them,” raise money for them, and provide them with “a stream of goodies that led to an ability to ask them back for stream of goodies the other way.” His criticism has apparently struck a nerve on K Street, because the American League of Lobbyists has been trying to rebut him. “I’m not even sure you could qualify Abramoff as a lobbyist,” the group’s president, Paul Miller, wrote. “I would call this a criminal.” Abramoff was a criminal. But much of what he did was typical. “If they think what I’m saying is an exaggeration, that what’s going on on Capitol Hill is nothing like what I’m saying and that I’ve made all this up – okay, what can I say,” he told the Public Citizen crowd. “Hopefully people will realize I am speaking sincerely and honestly.” Finally, Abramoff appears to be telling the truth.
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Previously:
• 02/01/12 Why we in the media just love Newt
• 01/31/12 The end of the road for Newt Gingrich?
• 01/25/12 Gingrich is Obama's best surrogate
• 01/24/12 Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney's attack dog
• 01/16/12 Mitt Romney's Al Gore problem
• 01/12/12 Kamikaze Gingrich, on the loose in South Carolina
• 01/11/12 Journalists' campaign trail secrets revealed
• 01/10/12 Mitt Romney's money problem
• 01/09/12 Newtonian exceptionalism
• 01/05/12 Mitt Romney out of control
• 01/04/12 Indecision 2012: In Iowa and the GOP
• 01/03/12 Rick Santorum's curious closing argument
• 12/28/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball
• 12/23/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball
• 12/20/11 Strange brews and views?
• 12/19/11 Cellphone ban would be a distraction
• 12/15/11 Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and the Malfunction Minuet
• 12/14/11 The presidential auction of 2012
• 12/12/11 Newt's tactics comes back to haunt him
• 12/06/11 Can an anthem save Occupy non-movement?
• 12/05/11 The winner of the GOP campaign: Washington
• 11/30/11 Barney the bully: Congressman Frank's other legacy
• 11/23/11 Jon Kyl's search-and-destroy mission
• 11/21/11 Pay to play, brought to you by Washington
• 11/17/11 Big enough to save the supercommittee?
• 11/16/11 Why Newt Gingrich won't last
• 11/08/11 The 2012 campaign gets seedier
• 11/06/11 A Machiavellian model for Obama
• 11/03/11 The Herman Cain crack-up
• 11/01/11 Cain can --- he will survive
• 10/27/11 Stuntmen of the supercommittee
• 10/26/11 Democrats on the sidelines
• 10/24/11 Rick Perry's birther Parade
• 10/24/11 The birthers eat their own
• 10/19/11 The GOP's middle man
• 10/17/11 The waiting for nothing Congress
• 10/12/11 Sparsely occupied D.C.: Why the movement hasn't caught on
• 10/10/11 Can Obama strike an alliance with Occupy Wall Street?
• 10/06/11 Chris Christie, such a presidential tease
• 10/05/11 Obama and his foot soldiers go toe to toe
• 09/28/11 Cain could deliver
• 09/26/11 Republicans? Mr. Nice Guys?
• 09/22/11 Why Ron Paul is winning the GOP primary
• 09/21/11 I am a job creator who creates no jobs
• 09/20/11 Obama launches a revolution
• 09/19/11 Dems for Romney?
• 09/14/11 ‘Supercommittee’? More than stupor committee
• 09/07/11 Mitt Romney finds his (corporate) voice
• 09/01/11 The infallible Dick Cheney
• 08/31/11 This liberal says Perry is the ultimate conservative candidate
• 08/29/11 Wanted: More bite from Obama the Great Nibbler
• 08/10/11 How Rep. Austin Scott betrayed his Tea Party roots
• 08/09/11 The most powerful man on Earth?
• 08/08/11 The FAA shutdown and the new rules of Washington
• 08/04/11 Lt. Col. Allen West fires a round at the Tea Party
• 08/03/11 Government on autopilot
• 08/02/11 Dems mourn debt deal like death
• 07/27/11 Life imitates sport
• 07/26/11 Obama and Boehner take on Washington
• 07/21/11 Why Americans are angry at Congress
• 07/20/11 The new party of Reagan
• 07/18/11 Rob Portman, the boring Midwesterner who could bring sanity to the debt debate
• 07/13/11 John Boehner's bind
• 07/04/11 Stephen Colbert, Karl Rove and the mockery of campaign finance
• 07/01/11 President Puts Up His Dukes, As He Ought To
• 06/28/11 Rod Blagojevich verdict: All shook up
• 06/27/11 Progressives voice their anger at Obama
• 06/24/11 ‘Mission accomplished,’ Obama style
• 06/22/11 Jon Huntsman's first step toward oblivion
• 06/21/11 Scott Walker finds making bumper stickers is easier than creating jobs
• 06/20/11 A day of awkwardness with Mitt Romney
• 06/06/11 Hubris and humility: Sarah Palin and Robert Gates on tour
• 06/02/11 The Weiner roast
• 06/01/11 Congress clocks in to clock out
• 05/30/11 Hermanator II: No More Mr. Gadfly
• 05/24/11 How Obama has empowered Netanyahu
• 05/24/11 Pawlenty bends his truth-telling
• 05/20/11 Default deniers say it's all a hoax
• 05/18/11: Gingrich gives voice to moderation
• 05/17/11: Donald Trump and the House of Horrors
• 05/16/11: The medical mystery of Mitt Romney
• 05/12/11: The body impolitic: Schock photos should tempt lawmakers to cover up
• 05/10/11: Muskets in hand, tea party blasts House Republicans
• 05/09/11: The GOP debate: America -- and the party -- needs the grown-ups
• 05/05/11: Mitch Daniels, an alternative to scary
• 05/03/11: Obama's victory lap
• 05/02/11: How the journalist prom got out of control
• 04/28/11: Obama's birther day: Why did he lower himself by appearing in the briefing room?
• 04/27/11: Obama, lost in thought
• 04/24/11: Andrew Breitbart and the rifts on the right
• 04/22/11: Ten Commandments for 2012
• 04/21/11: Obama likes Facebook. Facebook likes Obama.
• 04/18/11: Without Nancy Pelosi, Obama is adrift
• 04/15/11: If progressives ran the world
• 04/14/11: Faith in political apostasy
• 04/13/11: One man's revolution is another's political expediency
• 04/11/11: Shutdown theatrics
• 04/06/11: Paul Ryan's irresponsible budget
• 04/05/11: Robots in Congress? Yes, we replicant!
• 04/04/11: Robert Gibbs, Facebook and the White House corporate placement service
• 04/01/11: Haley Barbour, the fat cats' candidate
• 03/31/11: Republican freshmen in House shut down compromise, and possibly the government
• 03/30/11: Coburn and Durbin, the dynamic duo of the debt crisis
• 03/28/11: The Obama doctrine: A gray area the size of Libya
• 03/24/11: Dems as Weiners
• 03/23/11: Obama's quick trip from tyrant to weakling
• 03/17/11: Who's afraid of Elizabeth Warren?
• 03/15/11: The underwear flap over Bradley Manning
• 03/10/11: In Senate's debt debate, talk isn't cheap
• 03/09/11: With Obama's new Gitmo policy, Administration officials had some 'splainin to do
• 03/02/11: Issa press aide scandal is like bad reality TV
• 02/25/11: Jay Carney: Mouthpiece for an inscrutable White House
• 02/14/11: The Donald trumps the pols at CPAC
• 02/09/11: Arianna Huffington's ideological transformation
© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
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