Free Republic

The scandal in Washington, D.C., surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff has exposed a level of pay-to-play influence in our nation's Capitol which exceeded even our suspicions, which were numerous. Abramoff has pled guilty to trading campaign contributions and perks such as free meals at posh restaurants and international golf trips to Scotland in exchange for congressional votes for his clients. As layers of this odious onion are pealed away, the public is becoming all the more skeptical about the performance of their elected officials. However, there may be a silver lining to the scandal. Advocates of lower taxes and less government...

It was no way to treat a lady. On Jan. 15, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell wrote a column praising her paper for exposing crooked lobbyist Jack Abramoff. By Jan. 19, a section of the Post's Web site for reader comments was deluged with so much obscene e-mail from outraged liberals that the Post had to shut it down. Mr. Abramoff pled guilty earlier this month to defrauding his clients (Indian tribes who owned casinos) and the Internal Revenue Service. Ms. Howell's critics were in high dudgeon over a distinction without a difference. In the seventh paragraph of her column...

Republicans are looking for "their" John McCain. The popular Arizona maverick is already a Republican, of course. But the GOP needs a McCain in the "Keating Five" sense. Back in 1990, Senate Democrats roped McCain into the scandal over savings and loan kingpin Charles Keating on tenuous grounds, just so not all the senators involved would be Democrats. The GOP now craves such bipartisan cover in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Republicans trumpet every Democratic connection to Abramoff in the hope that something resonates. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), took more than $60,000 from Abramoff clients! North Dakota Democratic...

Republican leaders in the Senate have had a plan in place for the last two months to "get ahead of" the Jack Abramoff scandal by coming up with a new proposal for lobbying reform. The leadership "decided in November that lobby reform for the Senate was a priority for this session," and Majority Leader Bill Frist placed Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum in charge of it, Senate sources tell National Review Online.Santorum's efforts will be apart from the work of Senator John McCain, who has already introduced a proposal for lobbying reform. That proposal, McCain said in mid-December, "provides for...