21st Century Sleaze

Meyer: A Consumer's Guide To L'Affaire Abramoff

(CBS) 
Sleaze's Settings

Even if the Abramoff Indian-financed bribery spree does not change the patterns of U.S. history, it is political larceny with dollar amounts that are huge by Washington standards, though they wouldn't buy a decent rigged securities analysis on Wall Street.

The size and audacity of the Abramoff conspiracy was made possible only by an explicit and premeditated program initiated by Tom DeLay to strong-arm companies into hiring Republican lobbyists and, logic concludes, to strong-arm Republican members into accommodating Republican lobbyists. It was called the K Street Project. As the conservative writer David Brooks writes, with the Abramoff scandal, "the real problem wasn't DeLay, it was DeLayism, the whole culture that merged K Street with the Hill, and held that raising money is the most important way to contribute to the team." That is what made Abramoff possible. That is why this is a Republican scandal, even though he tried to bribe Democrats too.

Another small point: Congress is held is low public esteem right now — low, not the lowest ever. Few members have real power any more; power in Congress entails either expertise or seniority and with each passing year, fewer and fewer members are interested in acquiring those assets. So generally, House members and, to a lesser degree, Senators, don't have power, social prestige or money. That's partly why it's so easy to bribe them with skybox seats and fancy golf trips.

The Clucks Guarding the Hen House

One aspect of the anemic anti-corruption apparatus supposedly in place in Congress that really has broken down is the ethics committees. The way Congress spends and budgets taxpayers' money that includes earmarks and pork ensures that the opportunity to steal will always be immense. The standard disincentive is getting caught. While Congressional ethics committees were never Scotland Yard, they did have recent periods of effectiveness. The Senate Ethics committee under Warren Rudman and the late Howell Heflin initiated investigations that led to the fall of Senator David Durenberger, and they led the long inquiry into the Keating Five. In recent years, these committees have atrophied.

For the political consumer, this means giving up any notion that Congress can police itself. It can't. And it can't reform itself. This is a bipartisan truth. But Republicans right now seem to be in a deeper level of fantasyland. It is bizarre that they are letting DeLay try to stay in power. It is weird that they think simply giving back Abramoff's dirty contributions will make their problems go away. These are stark symbols that there is no honor code in Congress, even though there probably is one in your kid's high school.

The Villain

Jack Abramoff is an epic villain, absolutely as sleazy as they get and scandal connoisseurs should savor this.

To his guilty plea in Washington, he wore a scary black fedora. (Where could he have gotten it? eBay, searching "fedora, black, gestapo.") He claims to be an orthodox Jew, so maybe he was trying to be Hasidic. But to his Florida plea, he wore a baseball cap.

The man ripped off Indians, one of the most downtrodden people in the country. He conned the Washington media too. In 2000, the Washington publication most expert in covering lobbying, the National Journal, ran a puff piece that quoted Abramoff as saying, "We love the Choctaw here. The tribe is a wonderful client, and it really bothers me to see them have to spend so much money here."

Six months later, he e-mailed his partner in crime about one of his Indian clients, "Can you smell money??!?!?!" A year after that, Abramoff mailed the same guy that he had "to meet with the monkeys from the Choctaw tribal council."

Washington may be Hollywood for ugly people, but this guy is a big screen crook.

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Dick Meyer, a veteran political and investigative producer for CBS News, is the Editorial Director of CBSNews.com, based in Washington.

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