"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
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"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Remember the outrage about the Lincoln Bedroom sleepovers during the Clinton years?
Posted by Jill | 7:10 AM

Well, the denizens of Wingnutistan are curiously silent about Texas fundraiser, Tom DeLay buddy, and all-around crook Jack Abramoff selling access to C-Plus Caligula:

An arrangement involving two Indian tribes, the head of an anti-tax organization and a lobbyist now under criminal investigation — plus $50,000 — secured Indian leaders a private audience with President Bush.

Each of the players, including the president, had something to gain from the deal, carried out in 2001 and confirmed by tribal lawyers and documents showing the solicitation of money and the promise of a meeting with Bush.

The tribes were seeking to protect their casino gaming revenues from tougher labor regulations and to block changes in federal gaming laws that might interfere with their casinos. The anti-tax organization wanted sponsorship money for a political event, and the lobbyist acting as a go-between was charging his Indian clients millions of dollars for his services.

For Bush, participating in an event sponsored by the Americans for Tax Reform gave a hand to a pro-Republican group and its head, Grover Norquist, a longtime Bush ally and political consultant. Besides, lobbyist Jack Abramoff himself had raised more than $100,000 on behalf of Bush and had his own ties to Norquist.

"What this is, is the president helping out Americans for Tax Reform by agreeing to speak at their event," said Larry Noble, the former chief lawyer for federal election enforcement who now heads the Center for Responsive Politics. "The quid pro quo is ATR helps out the president with support of his agenda at the same time ATR is able to sell it to lobbyists and others as something that needs to be underwritten."


You see, selling access is the way things are done in Washington -- unless your name is "Clinton" or "Gore" or [insert your own Democrat here], in which case it makes you a moral degenerate.

This is why the current fashion among Beltway Democrats and their hangers-on for bashing Howard Dean rings so hollow. While Dean is working on harnessing the money and energy of actual citizens of the United States, the Democratic establishment is bemoaning his tendency to call 'em as he sees 'em. God forbid the corporate contributors should be angry and stop shoveling their leftovers (after they give the REAL bucks to Republicans) into Democratic political pockets.

The latest to get on this bandwagon is New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who yesterday repeated "Dean is not the voice of the Democratic Party" meme -- further proof that he's planning a Presidential run.

I am becoming more and more convinced every day that Mr. Brilliant is right: the Democratic Party only exists to make us think we have a choice, but the Democrats don't represent, nor do they want to represent, working Americans any more than Tom DeLay or George W. Bush does. The party isn't about the grassroots, it isn't about people, it isn't about getting people involved and running for office and opening their pockets to support their party because of what it stands for. It's about sitting like a discreet lapdog under the Republican groaning board, hoping for table scraps that might fall down after the gourmands at the Republican feast start getting drunk and sleepy from their orgy of cash.

How else to explain John Kerry folding his campaign even before all the votes were counted? How else to explain his failure to authorize the release of his stellar military service records -- a release which would have exposed the Swift Boat Liars as the craven sleazebags they are. How else to explain a campaign hiring 7-time loser Bob Shrum as a campaign manager? How else to explain the relentless caving in to Republicans every time?

When Howard Dean's campaign imploded in Iowa, it wasn't because of the scream. It was for two reasons: 1) an inexperienced campaign organization that had grown into a viable Presidential campaign long before it had the infrastructure to run itself; and 2) vicious attack ads run by a joint effort between establishment candidates John Kerry and Richard Gephardt.

Once you get past the punditocracy of the right and left, the Dean message resonates with real people. Dean always draws enthusiastic and large crowds, and those who actually hear what he has to say, instead of getting the version filtered through the Democratic establishment and the right-wing talking head translator, usually agree with him.

But the mainstream Democrats have become so lazy and so craven, that they still haven't articulated a reason for their existence. John Kerry talks a good game about seeking an investigation of the Downing Street Memo, but when it counted for him to make an effort, he shrugged his shoulders and chose not to.

Hillary Clinton spoke the other day about being an opposition party, and yet she still insists that voting for a war based on a lie was the right thing to do.

John Edwards, for all his supposed declarations of dealing with Howard Dean, makes very clear that he's not really backpedaling.

There's only one conclusion to be drawn from all this: The Democratic establishment wants to retain the status quo. What they've forgotten, or maybe this is the whole point of their existence, is that the status quo has been a loser for them since 1980. Yes, there's this blip in the political landscape named "Bill Clinton", but it's pretty clear by this point that Bill Clinton wasn't a winner because he kowtowed to the right, he was a winner because he was Bill Clinton, and was blessed with more charisma than any human being has any right to have.

Howard Dean is out there listening to people, instead of listening to failed campaign hacks like Bob Shrum and Al From, and pundit hacks like Chris Matthews and Tim Russert. He's doing the very thing that Democrats keep insisting they need: framing an agenda that distinguishes the Democrats from the Republicans.

Perhaps the Democratic Establishment doesn't WANT there to be anything different between the two parties -- at least as long as the corporate cash keeps flowing in.
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