Abramoff Donations to Democrats: $0.00

I haven't written anything about the Abramoff scandal yet for two reasons:

1. I have been reading the stories quietly, trying to gain further understand for myself, because there is a LOT of content being reported here and...

2. Any daily listener to Air America radio knows that the Abramoff thing is actually old news - to us anyway. We've been hearing about this for many months, and the mainstream corporate media has just now started to report the scandal. Yet another example of progressive media being way, way ahead of the curve, and listeners of this type of media being much more educated about this stuff than the average CNN viewer...who buy the way, knows more about great holiday decorating ideas or runaway brides than those of us who use progressive media for information. I guess that's the down side.

Anyway, the one thing I would like to post about is something that I got some clarification on myself recently from a fellow blogger that the media is disgustingly wrong about, and reporting incorrectlly.

The Republicans are trying to drag the Democrats down in the mud with them and they're actually getting away with it because most corporate outlets are failing to report correctly that no single Democrat took a single dime from Jack Abramoff. Period.

If you'd like to see Mr. Abramoff's contributions, for yourself, go here. For those of you too lazy to go to that link, I've prepared a pie chart illustrating Abramoff's contributions to Republicans versus money he has given to Democrats:


Perhaps those of you who still think the media has a liberal bias would like to read a transcript that's being posted at Kos and many other blogs and read how one of your "liberal" news outlets tried to spin the story this way with the wrong Democrat, Howard Dean:

Wolf Blitzer: “Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who has now pleaded guilty to bribery charges among other charges [and is] a Republican lobbyist in Washington, should the Democrats who took money from him give that money to charity or give it back?”

Howard Dean: “There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff. Not one. Not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person in [this] investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money and we’ve looked through all those FEC reports to make sure that’s true.”

(long pause) Wolf Blitzer: “But there are, through various Abramoff related organizations and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.”

Howard Dean: “That’s not true either. There’s no evidence for that either. There’s no evidence…”(crosstalk)

Wolf Blitzer: “What about Senator Byron Dorgan?”

Howard Dean: “Senator Byron Dorgan and some others took money from Indian tribes, they’re not agents of Jack Abramoff. There’s no evidence, that I’ve seen, that Jack Abramoff directed any contributions to Democrats. I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They’re scared. They should be scared. They haven’t told the truth, they have misled the American people, and now it appears they’re stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.”

(Longer Pause) Wolf Blitzer: “Sigh….Unfortunately Mr. Chairman we have to leave it right there. Howard Dean, the Chairman of the Democatic Party. Always speaking out bluntly, candidly, appreciate you joining us on Late Edition.”

I guess this proves two things - 1). Abramoff is a Republican who gave to Republicans and Republicans will be the only ones getting fined or going to jail, and 2). If CNN were really liberal producers would not have kept whispering for Wolf to pressure Dean into linking the Democrats with Abramoff.

If you're still confused by the graph above as many in the corporate media and Republican party seem to be, you can read an explanation here.