Equal opportunity sleaze? Um... no.

Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President George W. Bush calls indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff ``an equal money dispenser'' who helped politicians of both parties. Campaign donation records show Republicans were a lot more equal than Democrats.

Between 2001 and 2004, Abramoff gave more than $127,000 to Republican candidates and committees and nothing to Democrats, federal records show. At the same time, his Indian clients were the only ones among the top 10 tribal donors in the U.S. to donate more money to Republicans than Democrats.

Bush's comment about Abramoff in a Dec. 14 Fox News interview was aimed at countering Democratic accusations that Republicans have brought a "culture of corruption" to Washington. Even so, the numbers show that "Abramoff's big connections were with the Republicans," said Larry Noble, the former top lawyer for the Federal Election Commission, who directs the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics.

"It is somewhat unusual in that most lobbyists try to work with both Republicans and Democrats, but we're already seeing that Jack Abramoff doesn't seem to be a usual lobbyist," Noble said.
...
Between 2001 and 2004, Abramoff joined with his former partner, Michael Scanlon, and tribal clients to give money to a third of the members of Congress, including former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, according to records of the Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service. At least 171 lawmakers got $1.4 million in campaign donations from the group. Republicans took in most of the money, with 110 lawmakers getting $942,275, or 66 percent of the total.

Of the top 10 political donors among Indian tribes in that period, three are former clients of Abramoff and Scanlon: the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe of Michigan, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians of California. All three gave most of their donations to Republicans -- by margins of 30 percentage points or more -- while the rest favored Democrats.

What the Republicans are trying to do, as is explained in this piece and elsewhere, is to suggest that this sleaze was equally spread between both sides of the aisle. They are also trying to ignore the distinction between campaign contributions directly from Abramoff and his associates and contributions funneled through his Indian lobbying groups. There is an important difference between the two, obviously.

By either measure, it's simply a lie to suggest that Dems took as much of this money as the Republicans, and when keeping in mind the important distinction between the dirty Abromoff donations and the legal donations accepted from Indian lobbying groups, it's even more clear cut.

It doesn't get much more stark than, "Abramoff gave more than $127,000 to Republican candidates and committees and nothing to Democrats."


Don't put up with the lying spin. Try to count the number of times you hear Repubs and even "reporters" saying either that Dems got just as much money as Republicans, or that Republicans got more, but Dems got almost as much, again, ignoring the difference between politicians accepting outright donations directly from the crooked Abramoff and simply accepting contributions from Indian PACs. It's an important distiction which will be blurred beyond recognition in the press.