The Republicans: Up to Their Necks in the Abramoff Scandal

This remarkable article in the Washington Post deserves the widest attention: the story of Jack Abramoff, the #1 Republican fixer in Washington. Abramoff is connected with all the big right-wing Republicans: Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, everybody. The sheer gall, audacity, and contempt for the law shown by all these people is breath taking. The message is clear: the corruption of the Republicans running this country (into the ground) knows no limits. Indeed, Republicans themselves are beginning to sense this. Two quotes stand out in this regard:

Alan K. Simpson (R), the former Wyoming senator who was in Washington during the last big congressional scandal -- the Abscam FBI sting in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in which six House members and one senator were convicted -- said the Abramoff case looks bigger. Simpson said he recently rode in a plane with one of Abramoff's attorneys, who told him: "There are going to be guys in your former line of work who are going to be taken down."

Former Republican congressman Mickey Edwards (Okla.), usually a defender of lobbying and Congress, said there have always been members who get caught "stuffing money in their pants." But he said this is different -- a "disgusting" and disturbingly broad scandal driven by lobbyists whose attitude seemed to be "government to the highest bidder."

"This is at a scale that is really shocking," said Edwards, who teaches public and international affairs at Princeton. "There is a certain kind of arrogance that in the past you might not have had. They were so supremely confident that there didn't seem to be any kind of moral compass here."

By the way, the phony conservative argument we're hearing that "everyone" in Washington, both Democrat and Republican, is equally infected by corruption is pure, unadulterated horse manure. The corruption in Washington is 99.99% Republican, and no one can hide that fact any more.

Again: the removal of the Republicans from power at the earliest possible time (the 2006 elections) is imperative on many grounds, but this cesspool of right-wing corruption is foremost among them. If you've ever passed a story in J. Miller Rampant! to one of your friends, pass this one. There needs to be a political revolution in this country, and anything we can do to help it along will contribute.