Stop Me Before I Vote Again

The wishful thinkers over at Daily Kos are doing their best to sustain what you might call the Colonel Klink line:

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Democratic leader in the Senate, and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., were also among recipients of large contributions from tribes represented by Abramoff. Asked about Abramoff, Reid told the Las Vegas Sun, "I don't know him. I don't want to know him. I know nothing about it other than what I read in the newspaper. ... This is a Republican scandal."

Sorry, Harry, and sorry, Kos, no it's not. Abramoff spread his bribes around pretty well -- you might call it bipartisanship, actually. According to the Center for Responsive Government, from the 2000 electoral cycle through the current runup to '06, Abramoff and his docile clients gave $1,541,673 to various Democrats and $2,886,088 to Republicans To be sure, this is a 35/65 split in the Republicans' favor, but you have adjust for the fact that Democrats come a lot cheaper than Republicans -- I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, as opposed to The High-Price Spread.

Amusingly, the New York Times, which is a kind of large, slow-moving Kosnik at heart, also did its best to cover up the incestuous nakedness of the Democratic Noah. Here is the Times' graph of Abramoff's largesse, and here for comparison is the Center For Responsive Government's.

Among the larger Demo snouts at the Abramoff trough were my own dear Charlie Rangel ($36,000), the aforementioned Harry Reid ($30,000), Tom Daschle ($26,500) , and, delightfully, Steny Hoyer ($17,500). Barney Frank got $11,000, Nancy Pelosi was a comparatively small fry at $3,000.

Fourth on the list, however, was none other than the our friend Rahm Emanuel's Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, at $354,700. The Democratic National Committee received a comparative pittance of $65,720, putting it eighth on the list.

I hope they take very good care of Abramoff, and keep his singing voice in top condition. There'll be fun, fun, fun for all of us on this one.

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