Wampum

The GOP has done a great job of getting five little words, "Jack Abramoff and his clients" inserted into nearly every discussion of tainted money flowing to politicians, their parties and campaign committees. While Democratic and Progressive bloggers (Jane and Duncan in particular) have fought back, the primary argument has been that Abramoff gave to Republicans only. Of course, shills like Howell, Brady and Dobbs et al., then just point out that they said "and his clients". Of course, they know that they've done a smackdown job of laying the groundwork, and that most Americans understand that "clients" means "Indians", gaming tribes in particular.

So the very first thing we need to do is every single effing time some media talking head says "and his clients", we need to interrupt with, "You mean Microsoft? Unisys? Eli Lilly? Merck? Or do you mean the Northern Marianas? Guam International Airport? City of Oakland?" Hit them with it, and hit them hard. Make them have to say, loud and proud, that they only consider Indian clients of Greenberg Traurig to be the dirty ones.

Next, ask them how, if most of Abramoff's "clients" were also represented at the same time by other lobbying firms, just how do they know it was Abramoff "directing" money to Democrats? Granted, the same can be said for money directed to Republicans.

This is why we should be looking first and foremost to Abramoff's direct contributions. After that, if there is hard documentation showing any of Abramoff's "clients" were knowingly trying to illegally buy influence, then not only is that money tainted, but all the protagonists should be held accountable. But at this point, there is no more evidence that the Mississippi Band of Choctaw were bribing anyone than there is that Unisys was.

Because many of our Democratic leaders were initially willing to allow Indian tribes to be cast as co-villains, and not the victims of Abramoff, we have a great deal of hard work ahead of us if we want to kill the "and his clients" meme. At this point, just saying, "but it was his clients" means nothing, as his "clients", the Indians ones, of course, have been painted as dirty as Abramoff, and thus there is no separating the two, despite all our teeth gnashing. Every interaction needs to employ this two step process described above if we're actually going to make the traditional media own up to the racism inherent in the GOP campaign for which they continue to shill.