CREW’s blog has the details:
As we saw as recently as last Friday, the Bush Administration has gone to great lengths to prevent any access to information documenting a relationship with Jack Abramoff. But that relationship exists. CREW was provided a photo of President Bush and Jack Abramoff taken at a campaign fundraiser in December 2003. The White House did not want anyone to see this photo. So, that begs the question: What else are they hiding?
Well, let’s see: Bushie-Boy just got lawyered up with one of Tricky Dick Nixon’s old pals, so it must be something unspeakably hideous. In fact, it’s probably SEVERAL unspeakably hideous things.
Meanwhile, back to the incriminating photo. This is not the first time a picture has surfaced of the terrible twosome schmoozing it up (see here). It seems that Jack Abramoff himself tried to “shop” pix of himself and Dubya to the media just as the scandal was hotting up, says Raw Story:
Appearing on MSNBC, Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff reported that it was indeed Abramoff who floated the photographs to Washingtonian.
ISIKOFF: As a general rule, if you’re the president … you don’t like pictures out there of you with convicted felons. It sounds like … there’s at least one picture of him with at least one convicted felon and another indicted, so it’s probably not a picture the White House is eager to have out there. The other interesting aspect of this is, while the White House hasn’t put these out, Jack Abramoff has clearly shown them to people. I don’t know anything about Time sources, but I do know that he showed them to Washingtonian magazine, which suggests he may be playing a little bit of a game here. He has, of course, pled guilty already to the Justice Department. But it does raise a question in my mind at least as to whether Abramoff is maybe sort of sending some sort of signal out here: "Hey, I’ve got this stuff." Maybe he wants something from somebody at the White House, or he wants someone at the White House not to do something, and just sort of subtly playing with people here.
More likely, it was an “if I’m gonna go down, I’m gonna take some of these other punks down with me” kind of thing.
Nice to know that not only does the scum so often rise to the top, it also has a funny way of sticking to all the other scum. Here’s what MSNBC says about the fiscal relations of the two crooked sticks:
Abramoff helped raise more than $100,000 for Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign. He is serving nearly six years in prison for a fraudulent Florida casino deal and is cooperating with the FBI in a bribery investigation involving members of Congress and the Bush administration.
Over $100,000? Why, that should put him squarely in Pioneer territory, if I’m not mistaken. And sure enough, his name is right at the top of the list! Another hundred-thou, and he coulda been a Ranger. Awww! Guess Jacky didn’t buy quite enough influence to keep his ass out of a sling. Bet he treasures the cufflinks, though. (Gee, I wonder if this was him?)
