Wampum

This morning, I was slumming over at Maine's local Freeper hangout, As Maine Goes, mostly to see how the wingnuts are handling the most recent balance of power fiasco in the Maine House. It was there that I ran across a post highlighting, via a list released by the Republican National Committee, that 90% of Congressional Democrats were tainted by "Abramoff-linked" money.

Now, what exactly does that mean? If one looks at Abramoff's personal contributions, 100% went to Republicans.

I decided to do a bit more research on one of the names on the complete GOP-compiled list, former Congressman and 2004 Senate candidate Brad Carson of Oklahoma, who purportedly accepted $20,600 in "Abramoff-linked" money. A quick release of the monkeys into Google News came up with this brief:

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that at least 48 members of Congress had shed donations linked to Abramoff, including the top Republican leaders in the House and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.

Istook and Inhofe are the only current members of the Oklahoma congressional delegation who received money directly from Abramoff. A political action committee affiliated with former Sen. Don Nickles, who retired last year, also received money from Abramoff.

Some watchdog organizations that specialize in tracking campaign money have linked former Oklahoma U.S. Rep. Brad Carson and the Oklahoma Democratic Party to Abramoff because both received money from Indian tribes that had been represented by the lobbyist or his firm.

Among the tribes was the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. According to Senate records, Abramoff's firm was registered to lobby for the Cherokee Nation briefly in 2003. A spokesman for the Cherokee Nation could not be reached Thursday.

Note that nowhere in the article does it mention that Brad Carson is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

So to whom else did the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma give their "tainted money"?

Look at all those...Oklahoma candidates. Obviously the CNO would have no other reason than a suggestion from a short-term lobbyist to shell out all that cash to local candidates, particularly enrolled Indians such as Carson and Free.

What is now happening is that any and all money from these tribes, and I imagine soon, ALL gaming tribes (the only ones with enough cash to throw around) will be toxic to politicians. Fortunately, some Democrats are showing spine enough to call the GOP on their bigoted tactics. Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy, a long-time advocate for Indian tribes on the Hill, rejected the notion that contributions he took from sovereign Indian nations, some of which have on occasion been represented by Abramoff's lobbying firm, be returned to the tribes or donated to other causes, without tribal approval.

In the interest of full-disclosure, Eric and I purchased gas from the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe last summer in Michigan. The Saginaw-Chippewa were clients of Jack Abramoff's lobbying firm. Thus, we here at Wampum have been tainted by the receipt of an Abramoff-linked commodity. Hence, the Koufax Awards must also be tainted, as are all the recipients of Awards from the past four years. And if FEC blog-linking rules go into effect, we've poisoned everyone on our sidebar as well. Isn't that how it works, according to new GOP "they did it too" rules?

Update: I spent most of the morning typing this, and missed ReddHedd's welcome post on the subject. Sadly, some of fdl's readers are idiots when it comes to tribal sovereignty issues, but it's nothing we haven't seen in the past in the Lefty blogosphere.

Update2: skippy, writing in the diaries at MyDD hops on the "those who get it" bandwagon:

the problem with this guilt by association tactic is that it's weak, and not even a real debating point.

for example: skippy is in show business. suppose skippy hires a public relations firm, let's call them abramoff & associates, to publicize his career. ergo, skippy is abramoff's client.

and let's say skippy also pays some of his own money to backstage west for an ad touting skippy's appearance in "blogtopia! the musical!" at a 99-seat equity waiver theater at the complex.

then, for the sake of argument, let's say it turns out abramoff & associates is run by the mafia, and they are bribing television studios with payola to hire their actor clients. by the same logic, then backstage west is affiliated with the mafia, and involved in the bribery scandal. because, after all, skippy is abramoff's client, and backstage "took money from abramoff, his associates, or his clients."

even worse, let's suppose abramoff & associates cheated skippy out of his money. so now it's a case of blaming the victim.