McCain’s Abramoff investigation was ‘pure political payback’ for 2000 election.
McCain’s Abramoff investigation was ‘pure political payback’ for 2000 election.
In “The Perfect Villain: John McCain and the Demonization of Lobbyist Jack Abramoff,” journalist Gary S. Chafetz details how Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pursued his investigation into the fallen lobbyist as “pure political payback,” rather than “the high-minded reform crusade he has made it out to be on the campaign trail.” McCain reportedly remained upset that Abramoff had backed Ralph Reed’s effort to defeat him in the 2000 South Carolina primary:
Chafetz argues that McCain nursed the wounds of that defeat for years, and in 2004 jumped on the chance to investigate Abramoff after the Washington Post published a damning expose of the millions of dollars in lobbying fees Abramoff had collected from his casino-rich Indian tribal clients.
Peppered with new quotes from Abramoff — who met with Chafetz while in federal prison in Cumberland, MD — the book alleges that McCain withheld the vast majority of emails he confiscated during the inquiry, many of which could be exculpatory to the former lobbyist or damaging to McCain allies.
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McCain’s positions on most everything seem to be based on a series of grudges, not on some imaginary moral high road. He is a simmering time bomb, and perhaps the most dangerous man to ever run for president.
And the grudges he is now forming with respect to the media and his critics mean that he is bound to blow before the election occurs. Unless his Xanax dose is upped again. Cindy? Cindy?
PEACE
September 8th, 2008 at 11:59 amMcCain camp (through a spokeperson), “SO?”
September 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pmSo McSame holds grudges for years — knowing that, if I worked in the government of VietNam, now relatively friendly to and a trade partner with the USA, I’d be very, very afraid of his potential election to the US presiduncy…
September 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pmSo we have a vindictive evil guy who will be backed up by a backstabbing malicious vice president and we are going to give him all the tools that Bush and Cheney accumulated during the last 8 years to work with. Good times.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:08 pmMcCain pursued “just us” instead of justice, what a surprise!
Now we’re supposed to believe Grumpy kissed the Alaskan princess and will make America live happily ever after?
I don’t think so…
September 8th, 2008 at 12:10 pmAnd this is surprising how?
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that John McCain is not in this for anything other than to be able to say he was President. And he’s doing anything and everything to make sure that happens, regardless of how much and how many times he has to sell his soul.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:11 pmSo Abramoff is a victim, and shouldn’t have been investigated?
I don’t know where TP is going with this. If anything, this should be on McCain’s campaign site, saying “see, Abramoff hates me!”
September 8th, 2008 at 12:16 pmMcGeritol is trying to make this election about Patriotism.
He still doesn’t GET IT.
This election is about POLICY.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:20 pmCarlos Says:
——————————————————————————–
So Abramoff is a victim, and shouldn’t have been investigated?
I don’t know where TP is going with this. If anything, this should be on McCain’s campaign site, saying “see, Abramoff hates me!”
September 8th, 2008 at 12:16 pm ——————————————————————————–
Where has McDepends been in demanding that everyone involved in outing Valerie Plame be held accountable if he’s truly patriotic and all about justice ?
September 8th, 2008 at 12:21 pmThe leopard and its spots–Keating & temper. To McCain the moral high ground is merely the best position for him to lay down a murderous enfilade on his enemies’ list.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:26 pmNoone is saying that Abramoff should not have been investigated idiot. What IS being pointed out is that this investigation had NOTHING to do with being a “maverick” and EVERYTHING to do with settling a score and protecting friends. Sheez, if the trolls could actually READ around here, the post clearly points out the convenience of McCain in the witholding of many e-mails (sound like an Administration that we all know?) in order to shield allies (Mr. Scheunemann’s name comes to mind for one). Seems like McPanderBear is just another scumbag Republican politician who will use his position to settle grudges and use that same position of power to protect wrongdoing by his allies while twisting his actions in order to appear more “mavericky”. Where have all the good trolls gone? I guess the RNC must be running low on troll funds these days.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:31 pmLet me explain it Carlos. I was going to use big words but this is simpler. Abramoff can be guilty and McCain can still be an evil vindictive b#stard, get it.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:31 pmzimzone says: …This election is about POLICY.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
only to probably less than 5% of the electorate.
mostly it’s about selling a brand/image.
Been like that for 50-60 years. and it was not that nobody noticed before, either. the same 5% was on top of it all along. just that the concentration of the media in the hands of the elites prohibited the public expression of criticism. The toobz made it possible for the 5%ers to find each other, but hasn’t really increased our numbers or our clout…we’re still the same (only) 5% who get it…but they’ve got 95% believing it, and that’s a phenomenal success rate…
September 8th, 2008 at 12:32 pmHey Carlos did you hear that McCain was a POW? Cindy says he doesn’t like to talk about it so I wanted to make sure you heard that. I just thought of it because Palin is on MSNBC screeching just like she did at the convention the exact same speech. So she’s had time to fix the lies she told if she wanted too.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:36 pmRemembering the Keating Five thingee, it’s possible that McShitstain recognized Abramoff as a competing gang, and decided to take him out.
Has anybody NOT read Thomas Frank’s latest Harper’s piece? I think ya gotta be signed in, but it is terrifying how easy it was for a buncha con-men and gunsels to hijack the whole country. It’s qualitatively no different than if the place were governed by the Mafia…
September 8th, 2008 at 12:37 pmOf course elections should be about POLICY…but maybe 1992 was the last one that was…kinda…but unless us democrats start playing wacka McBully…it’s going to be an uphill and I think losing strategy…If Obama wants to take the “high Road” well OK but everyone of his surogates better start getting out there and beating McSame and the VP Bimbo with a 2×4…If an election was ever about policy, Lincoln would have been the last Republican president ….. which is another thing that amazes me…Why do us democrats allow the GOP to even claim the mantle of Lincoln…as if the Republican Party that Lincoln was in, has even the remote resemblance of the Repuglican Party of today…
September 8th, 2008 at 12:40 pmBut McCain doesn’t have any anger issues, does he?
September 8th, 2008 at 12:44 pmWhat a surprise.
NOT.
September 8th, 2008 at 12:58 pmPayback Palin completes the ticket.
September 8th, 2008 at 1:12 pmNixon lives!
.
Please,
Can someone explain how someone from the Keating Five has credibility here?
.
September 8th, 2008 at 1:14 pmThe Presidency
September 8th, 2008 at 1:16 pmThe last item on John McCain’s Bucket List
In his own (ghostwritten) words
“I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president. ”
What to expect
“I make [decisions] as quickly as I can, quicker than the other fellow, if I can,” Mr. McCain wrote, with his top adviser Mark Salter, in his 2002 book, Worth the Fighting For. “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”
To tie into 1. Spensers Mom:
and it is starting to look like Palin is a rather conniving, petty pay-back artist also.
September 8th, 2008 at 1:36 pmSounds like the same cowardly backstabbing McCain offered his Keating 5 pals, and again, just in time to keep himself out of trouble. I’d think the crooks would get tired of having a snitch on their team.
September 8th, 2008 at 1:39 pmFrom the CBS news article:
“But, as 60 Minutes found out, the imprisonment of (former Alabama governor) Don Siegelman is not nearly as simple as that.
“I haven’t seen a case with this many red flags on it that pointed towards a real injustice being done,” says Grant Woods, the former Republican attorney general of Arizona.
Woods is one of the 52 former state attorneys-general, of both parties, who’ve asked Congress to investigate the Siegelman case.”
Woods was a key instigator of this group of 52 former state attorneys-general
Woods is also a close friend of McCain, and the result of Siegelman’s release created pressure on Karl Rove to testify before Congress. I’ve posted before that McCain is holding thousands of documents related to the Abramoff investigation subpoenaed during his chairmanship of the Senate Indian Affairs committee. Very few people are in jail now as a result of that investigation. Could there be more? How many people have been spared after they supported McCain’s candidacy, which was once so close to ending for lack of funds? Wasn’t it strange how all the competition magically melted away so early in the primaries?
September 8th, 2008 at 2:37 pmThe payback is all about McCain getting his shot at the White House after Rove ruined it for him in 2000.
The Abramoff cover-up continues.
Abramoff visited the Bush White House hundreds of times, and he didn’t go there to talk to low-level Bush administration officials or talk about the weather.
McCain holds grudges and has a violent temper.
McCain went after Abramoff supposedly because Abramoff backed Ralph Reed’s efforts to defeat him in the South Caroline primaries…but remember that the Bushites/Karl Rove smeared McCain, too, so in going after Abramoff and Ralph Reed, was John McCain also seeking payback against Bush and Cheney?
Because, in my view, the two people in the Bush White House most likely to have been in bed with Abramoff were George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, as well as most of their immediate underlings. That was one mighty big bed.
But the Bush/Cheney/Gonzales/Mukasey Justice Department looks like it has shied away from going after the BIG FISH, and instead has focused on going after all the little Republican fish, outside the White House…even though Abramoff spent so much time at the Bush White House.
September 8th, 2008 at 9:11 pmIt’s obvious that the Abramoff-related investigations have been buried. Dozens of Repugs (and some Dems, if I recall) were mentioned in the various media investigations of Abramoff, but somehow only a few have gone on trial or to jail. The FBI claims it is still interviewing Abramoff and building cases. After the anthrax investigation debacle, and the FBI’s traditional role as the government’s political police, how many people believe the the FBI is doing everything in its power to bring all the Abramoff criminals to justice?
September 8th, 2008 at 11:49 pm