A century and a half of Republican corruption - Sidney Blumenthal

For you history buffs, here's a very interesting blow-by-blow account of Abramoff's rise in the finest traditions of Republican corruption. Highly recommended. Read the whole thing, and then get your popcorn ready to watch the show.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy/republican_system_3197.jsp

The Republican system
Sidney Blumenthal
20 - 1 - 2006

The career of disgraced super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff is a lesson in the debasement of the Republican political machine and the culmination of the post-1994 "revolution" it proclaimed, says Sidney Blumenthal.

Hardly anyone in the Republican Party, in Congress or at the White House, seems to recall ever having met Jack Abramoff. Collective amnesia has suddenly descended upon the capital. The super-lobbyist, whose plea bargain with prosecutors requires the extensive naming of members of Congress, staffers, ex-staffers, lobbyists, friends, colleagues and his own personal assistants, is spending his days racking his memory for details of their relationships that may become the basis for bills of indictment.

Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials, has left a trail of hard evidence in addition to his sworn confessions. At the end of every business day his former assistant wrote a summary of all his contacts and their conversations, emailed it to him and carefully saved it; these documents mapping the days and ways of Jack Abramoff are now in the hands of the prosecutors. (Abramoff's former assistant, Susan Ralston, moved seamlessly from his employ to the White House to become Karl Rove's assistant, where she regularly vetted supplicants to Rove through Grover Norquist, Abramoff's longtime political associate and business partner).

(snip)

The Abramoff affair is the greatest congressional scandal in American history since the Crédit Mobilier. In 1873, a congressional investigation revealed that the holding company of the Union Pacific Railroad had dispensed stock to around thirty members of Congress; two were censured, none indicted. Undoubtedly, the punishments arising from the Abramoff affair will be more extensive than those from the Crédit Mobilier.

(more)