. . . dream that Abramoff slept over in the Lincoln Bedroom? Heh, heh, indeed.

about the lies of the president and his press secretary when there are authors out there telling us that their crappy memoirs are completely true!!

The literary world must be cleaned up once and for all. Thanks Oprah, Anderson Cooper, Larry King and the rest for not sleeping on this crucial James Frey scandal. This lobbyist/corruption/White House connection non-sense will work itself out, I'm sure.

Bush tried to say he didn't know Ken Lay immediately after the Enron meltdown. He dropped that line of defense early after the media exposed more information about "Kenny Boy." If the Abramoff photos ever come to light, I expect they'll be a lot more chummy than we're lead to believe. The misinformation and lies of this president takes the cake. But his continued attempts to insult our collective intelligence with cheap denials and chuckles are the icing on the cake.

Once again, as Joe points out, the rank hypocrisy of the Washington press corps as it is currently constituted makes its appearance. Were this scandal on the watch of a Democratic president -- especially a Clinton, or a Gore -- there would be no stopping the ravenous reporters from asking pointed questions and posting breathless updates by the hour. It would be a feeding frenzy -- sharks with blood in the water. Instead, we get the president and his spokesmen lying with impunity, laughing off any suggestion of collusion or corruption, and the media issuing a collective tepid yawn.

I'm beyond disgusted. My outrage meter has been running in the red for so long now that it seems I'll never get back to just being plain old angry about this administration's crimes and the complicity of the press.

Let's apply the famous dictum that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Many on the right make the argument that we should not be upset about Bush's warrantless spying program because only those who are breaking the law have anything to fear. In some cases, they've even gone so far as to say that they are happy to allow their benign phone conversations to be listened in on without a warrant because there is nothing of consequence in those conversations.

Fine. Using the same logic, why should the Bush administration have any qualms about releasing all of the White House records concerning Abramoff? If, as Bush claims, there was no relationship, then the White House has nothing to fear, just as those of us "have nothing to fear" from having our phones tapped. Releasing the documents, according to the Bush narrative, can only help his case because he done nothing wrong.

On the other hand, if he's lying . . .

"You know, I, frankly, don't even remember having my picture taken with the guy. I don't know him."

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

Which half truth is more important.

He may have had his picture taken with 9000 people but only 327 were "Pioneers" for his 2004 campaign.

According to an analysis by Public Citizen, nearly one of every five of Bush’s elite fundraisers in the 2004 or 2000 elections has received a presidential appointment.

How many of those people does he not know?

Stalling works for this administration, given the short attention span of the media. They take a little flak for the evasion, make jokes, frame the issue falsely over and over until people believe it, and the media quickly forgets about the issue. "Look over there, it's another disaster you can cover for days on end..."

The man raised $100,000 for Bush's campaign.

He was part of Bush's transition team in 2000/2001.

AND he kept the money flowing like Niagara, throughout the Capitol and especially K-Street.

Sure, yeah, okay, Bush never really knew him, and doesn't even remember meeting him.

Guess that 100-Grand can't buy now what it did just a few months ago.

Some inflation!

Thanks for continuing to highlight Bush's association with the self professed King of All Lobbyists, a.k.a., Jack Abramoff.

I guess the next installment in the paper trail of articles Joe is to check in with the ex-Federal Prosecutor Black. Sure would like to hear his take on how he was summarily replaced if nothing else. I'll understand if you don't give him any space though. There may be even more revealing insights along other avenues.

What was it you said? 195 contacts in Abramoff's billing records relating to the Administration?

As well, in fact in short, its absurd not to believe that the biggest Republican Lobbyist ever has no ties to the top Republican.

Absurd!

As always, thanks for keeping me up to speed Joe.

I appreciate it greatly.

My question about the photos, as well as all other government documents, is: Who paid for them? Who paid the photographer and the associated developer, etc. If the answer is the taxpayers (as I suspect), then how can they possibly be kept from the public?

I am so disgusted about this. We even have people selling the documents they created while employed by the government as if they owned them. How can one branch withold documents from another? How can they be sealed in places like presidential libraries for many years? How can the press roll over (as usual) on this?

... manipulate the language to our advantage. Start using specific terms over and over until they sink in to the public consciousness. Think "death tax" and "axis of evil." Here's a start:

"Jack Abramoff, a known associate of Bush family consigliere Karl Rove ..."