NRO to Abramoff Obfuscators - STFU!

by pessimist

William Buckley's National Review has certainly earned its conservative credentials. Even wildmen like Donald Wildmon could never make a case, credible even to the wrabid wrong-wingers who leave wrambling screeds in our comment threads, that the National Review ever had a single progressive bone in its opulent body.

Thus, I find it especially interesting that they have written the following article about the RNC Abramoff scandal talking point:

It’s the Republicans, stupid.
January 10, 2006

Republicans are looking for "their" John McCain. The popular Arizona maverick is already a Republican, of course. But the GOP needs a McCain in the "Keating Five" sense. Back in 1990, Senate Democrats roped McCain into the scandal over savings and loan kingpin Charles Keating on tenuous grounds, just so not all the senators involved would be Democrats. The GOP now craves such bipartisan cover in the Jack Abramoff scandal.

Republicans trumpet every Democratic connection to Abramoff in the hope that something resonates. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), took more than $60,000 from Abramoff clients! North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan used Abramoff's skybox! It is true that any Washington influence peddler is going to spread cash and favors as widely as possible, and 210 members of Congress have received Abramoff-connected dollars.

But this is, in its essence, a Republican scandal, and any attempt to portray it otherwise is a misdirection.

Abramoff is a Republican who worked closely with two of the country's most prominent conservative activists, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed. Top aides to the most important Republican in Congress, Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) were party to his sleazy schemes. The only people referred to directly in Abramoff's recent plea agreement are a Republican congressmen and two former Republican congressional aides.

The GOP members can make a case that the scandal reflects more the way Washington works than the unique perfidy of their party, but even this is self-defeating, since Republicans run Washington. Republicans must take the scandal seriously and work to clean up in its wake.

The first step was the permanent ouster of Tom DeLay as House Republican majority leader, a recognition that he is unfit to lead as long as he is underneath the Abramoff cloud.

Of course, making these sort of changes would be painful. That's why it is tempting for Republicans to look for a John McCain instead.

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