A welcome change of perspective.

by Kagro X

Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo today examines the burgeoning Abramoff scandal from a refreshingly wide angle:

On paper, Jack Abramoff was a lobbyist. And he made a great deal of money for himself. But if you think of Jack Abramoff as just a crooked lobbyist most of the facts coming out about what he did don't make a great deal of sense. He was a key player in a very big political machine and he was managing a slush fund. 

Look at the pattern.

Notice how all Abramoff's clients seemed to get 'bilked' out of large sums of money that ended up going to other conservative foundations, consulting firms, Ralph Reed, lobby shops, Grover Norquist, astroturf organizers, politicians, etc.? All of them part of Washington's Republican infrastructure?

It's a sentiment echoed by Daily Kos diarist dengre, who sums it up thus: " Jack is a 25-year GOP bag man."

Very astute, I think. Josh and dengre do us all a big favor by shifting our perspective on the goings-on, and prompting us to think of Abramoff as something other than a lobbyist who happens to have gotten himself in trouble. In fact, what he does is just the polite name for influence peddling. And no, that's not actually what most lobbyists do. Or at least, it wasn't, until the advent of the "K Street Project."

But it's more than just that. Jack hooks his clients up with what amounts to a GOP protection racket. As in, "Nice business you got there. Be a shame if something tragic -- something regulatory -- happened to it." And then, as Josh notes, the spoils are divided among the players in the movement right's seamy underbelly. "Lobbying" work is performed by dealers either too shady (see Grassroots Interactive -- who just had two employees abscond for Israel, a la Myer Lansky!) or too concerned with their false image of piety (see the use of the Christian Coalition to run interference on behalf of Indian gaming outfits) to be contacted directly. And, of course, Abramoff takes a cut of the fee. In fact, perhaps more than just a cut, since Grassroots Interactive, for instance, is "controlled" by Abramoff.

But the self-financing aspect of the bagman operation doesn't end there. We also find out more each day about Abramoff's vertical integration scheme, involving the "rental" of his luxury skyboxes at the DC area's premier sports arenas to clients seeking to curry favor with legislators, for whom they hold fundraisers in the rented space, and the use of the floating tab at his now-infamous Signatures restaurant.

Abramoff gets you coming and going. Look carefully at that wikipedia link above, referencing the use of the Christian Coalition -- the charges there go further than I was aware of. The accusation there is, "The lobbyists are accused of orchestrating lobbying against their own clients in order to force them to pay for lobbying services." Let's say that again: lobbying against their own clients in order to force them to pay for lobbying services! On what planet is that not a shakedown? Who wouldn't call that a protection racket?

Then, of course, once you find you need a lobbyist, you hire Abramoff, because he says he has the connections to make your problem go away. And of course, in the case of the Indian casinos, he does! Because he's creating the problem! So he signs you up for a "grassroots" lobbying campaign, and "outsources" the work -- only he's outsourcing it to himself, and charging you a marked-up "brokerage fee," plus collecting the fee for "services" on the other end! And when it comes time to schmooze the legislators, he has you "rent" his luxury skybox to host a fundraiser for select Congressmen, but "forgets" to pass the bill on to the beneficiary of the event, as required by law. Cool by Jack, though, because now the Congressman owes him a favor -- both for the checks collected and for the freebie on the skybox -- and he still gets paid for the venue rental by the client! Perfect!

So, kudos to Josh and dengre, for helping us to break out of the absurd frame in which Abramoff can give himself the sheen of being a real, but sorely misunderstood and persecuted "lobbyist."

Next up, shattering the frame of the Bush "administration." Notice that there, too, I am able to use Josh Marshall as a jumping off point. Interesting. Maybe one day, the dam really will burst on this.

Comments

[DemFromCT]

The money is going not just to Abramoff... it get filtered where? Swift Boat Veterans For Truth? Ordinary People Against [fill in Dem candidate]? Is this Watergate writ corporate? Is this "silence your political enemies with skimmed off funds"?

As they famously said so many years ago with the last slush fund scandal in DC, "follow the money." Where does it go and who controls it? Abramoff works for who?

[jonnybutter]

'Administration'. Nice euphemism.

[Kagro X]

Josh Marshall has that beat. But you're on the right track, I think.

If I had to guess, I'd say the money gets split up among two, maybe three dozen (or more) operations, but those operations are controlled by one dozen (or fewer) key players. Modeled on "Newt, Inc.," there exists an interlocking directorate of "lobbying" (read: astroturf) groups, list dealers, advocacy organizations, etc. with which the key players can both push an agenda, and double dip.

[DemFromCT]

jonnybutter, you're so right. And all these complaints about Bush administration incompetence are sooo misplaced. They use FEMA as the turkey farm, but the skilled players work for and with Abromoff.

[Newsie8200]

So this is "The Rethuglican Mafia."

The lefty blogosphere could start up a pool... everyone submits the number and names of "key players" and the number and names of henchmen. Closest to the correct answers gets lots of traffic to his/her blog.

[Mimikatz]

So Abramoff is the bagman, but who is in control of this scheme? To me it looks like DeLay, Norquist and his allies such as Reed, and some shadowy corporate group. Are they really Christian conservatives like the Dominionists? Probably not, given Norquist's ties to various Islamic groups and Abramoff and other's ties to Israeli groups. Some group of corporate protofascists led by Cheney? The Mafia? What about Abramoff's ties to some rather shadowy Russians that Josh Marshall has posted about? Is it just about money? What is really going on here? Finally I think we are on the right track.

[emptywheel]

What's fascinating is between the Abramoff protection racket and the AIPAC influence racket, the really sordid sides of BushCo "lobbyists" is being revealed.

I'd like to begin to find a way to describe the damage that occurs in such instances, so when we try to regulate some of this and are told it's a freedom of speech issue, we can find a way to combat that claim--or a way around it.

If we make it through the Bush fiasco (no bets on the table from me, at this point), we're really going to have learned we need to severely curtail the access industry in this country.

[Kagro X]

Well, perhaps we can borrow a framework from the Internal Revenue Code's prohibitions against self-dealing, at least as a place to start.

[Meteor Blades]

Progress. We have come so far from the days when Union Pacific's "lobbyists" passed out $100 bills on the very floor of Congress.

[ReddHedd]

Perhaps we should all just start referring to Abramoff as "Karl Rove's bag man" from now on. I like the phrase, myself -- short, to the point, concise, and it spells out the disgusting level of criminal pyramid scheming these jerks have put together for bilking everyone who needs anything from government. Indictments couldn't happen to a nicer crew.

[texas dem]

My takeaway reading of Marshall's post was different from yours, Kagro, in that I'm wondering at the volume of money flowing through the machine and what it's for. I don't think it's for personal enrichment, though that happens too; I worry that this is how they're funding their whole ideological operation, or at least all the parts of it that the big business families are too shy to put their names to. What kind of money goes to black preachers, and where does it come from? What kind of money went to that phone bank in New Hampshire? What kind of money paid the Swifties? I don't really have any inkling of what they do with their dirty money, but when I look at Abramoff I don't see a breathtakingly bold shakedown; I see them raising money for campaigns, just as clearly as if it were the RNC. Except there's the campaigns you can have Mehlman's sticky fingerprints on, and those you can't; and for those you can't, you have Tyco give money to Abramoff who gives it to whoever gets the dirty stuff done these days.

I think it's a fully political operation though, with political purposes, paid for by shaking down random groups who have business before DeLay's House or Rove's regulatory agencies. Not venal or corrupt, because it's not for financial gain. It's to build the machine that maintains their power.

I'm now afraid that I've stated the obvious as if you hadn't seen it. But I think the item of first importance is not how scandalously he raised the money. If anything, it's that none of it went to anything like real lobbying at all; it all went to GOP black-Ops, programs which most "clients" were unaware of and which other clients (Tyco) will pretend they didn't know about. That probably is uncommon.

[Kagro X]

Yes, Texas Dem, that was indeed (I think) the point of Josh's post. I think it was his intention to focus on the money and the slush fund.

My intent was to demonstrate how little daylight there is between what they're doing and what criminal racketeers do -- complete with abscontion to Israel!

Once you realize that the actions are entirely the same, you stop feeling hesitant about calling them "lobbyists," and affording them all the niceties and benefit of the doubt that keep them in Brooks Brothers suits and out prison stripes.

It's my hope that one day we'll all recognize the same formula at work when we take an honest but more detached look at the Bush "administration" -- if that's what you choose to keep calling it.