Flim-Flam and Hoo-Hah

[Guest guest]

A

Flim-Flam and Hoo-Hah

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 03:00:00 -0700

 

 

 

 

http://www.alternet.org/story/26512/

 

Flim-Flam and Hoo-Hah

 

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted October 7, 2005.

 

 

Everybody and his dog in the political commentating trade now agrees

the Bush administration is experiencing hard times -- the going is

getting tough, and Bush is getting testy.

 

Sometimes it helps to draw back from what's going on, to see if any

patterns emerge from the chaos of daily events. In the news biz,

attempts to see the Big Picture are known as thumbsuckers and regarded

with appropriate contempt.

 

On the famous other hand, it's also sometimes the only way to see the

much bigger stories that seep and creep all around us without anyone

ever calling a press conference, or issuing talking points, or having

gong-show debate over them.

 

Everybody and his dog in the political commentating trade now agrees

the Bush administration is experiencing hard times -- the going is

getting tough, and Bush is getting testy. Bush always gets testy under

stress. This is not news.

 

It seems to me what we are looking at was put best by noted journalist

Billy Don Moyers, formerly of Marshall, Texas, who was home last week

and observed that the Republican right came to Washington to start a

revolution and stayed to run a racket. It has become a game of

ideological flim-flam, a scam in which all manner of distracting

hoo-hah -- abortion, judicial activism, even " the war on terra " -- is

used to obscure the fact that the government has been taken over by

people who are using it to make money for themselves and their friends.

 

In the business world, this is called " control fraud, " and it refers

to an organization, like Enron or Tyco, that is rotten at the head.

One of the key figures in this web of malfeasance is Jack Abramoff,

the super-lobbyist, top fund-raiser for Bush's re-election and close

buddy of Rep. Tom DeLay, himself the architect of the " K Street

Strategy " to convert the entire business lobby into the fund-raising

arm of the Republican Party in return for whatever legislative favors

the major donors want. Abramoff is also the close ally and former

college roommate of Grover Norquist, a key right-wing political

activist and major leader of the " movement conservatives " in

Washington. Abramoff has also bragged that he contacted Karl Rove on

behalf of Tyco.

 

Tim Flanigan, Bush's nominee to be deputy attorney general, left the

White House Office of Legal Counsel in December 2002 to become the top

lawyer for Tyco. Flanigan hired Abramoff to lobby for Tyco. He was to

work against proposed legislation that would take away tax breaks from

" Benedict Arnold " corporations that locate in tax havens outside the

United States in order to get out of paying corporate taxes. Tyco is

based in Bermuda.

 

Abramoff told Flanigan he would use his contacts with both DeLay and

Karl Rove, " Bush's Brain, " to lobby for keeping the tax breaks for

Tyco. Think about it. Bush now proposes to put in as second in command

of the Justice Department, which is investigating this whole mess, the

man who is Tyco's lawyer and who hired Abramoff. If Flanigan is

confirmed, that will mean the five top appointees at Justice have zero

prosecutorial experience among them. But Flanigan does have the only

quality that truly matters in a Bush appointee: absolute loyalty to

the administration.

 

Washington, D.C., is theoretically covered by the largest

concentration of journalistic talent anywhere in the world. This is

just a straight, old-fashioned corruption story of the sort

theoretically uncovered by many Washington reporters earlier in their

lives at various city halls. Did everyone forget how it's done?

 

Equally, the arrest of David Safavian, former head of procurement at

the White House Office of Management and Budget, for having impeded

justice by lying or covering up material facts opens up all kinds of

lines of inquiry. Safavian was previously a partner in Norquist's

consulting firm Janus-Merritt. Safavian also worked with Abramoff at

another law-lobbying firm.

 

One definition of Establishment journalism is relying solely on press

conferences held by people with public office and power. With the

exception of The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, the

Washington press corps appears to be standing around waiting for word

from the official investigation. Why aren't they ahead of the official

investigators?

 

Seems to me we have all mourned the descent of politics from the noble

(if messy and comically picturesque) doings of democracy into a system

of legalized bribery. Taking huge campaign contributions from special

interests and doing legislative favors in return is so common one

barely blinks at it.

 

Rep. Roy Blunt, the man Republicans chose to temporarily replace DeLay

while he's under indictment, tried to alter a Homeland Security bill

in 2003 with a last-minute provision to benefit the cigarette company

Philip Morris. Philip Morris had not only contributed heavily to

Blunt's campaign, it also employed both Blunt's girlfriend and his

son. DeLay gets indicted, and the Republicans replace him with another

DeLay.

 

The executive branch scandals seem to me to be a new and more sinister

level of corruption. I can't wait to have Tim Flanigan investigate them.

 

Molly Ivins writes about politics, Texas and other bizarre happenings.