A False Balance - New York Times: "So Mr. Abramoff is a movement conservative whose lobbying career was based on his connections with other movement conservatives. His big coup was persuading gullible Indian tribes to hire him as an adviser; his advice was to give less money to Democrats and more to Republicans. There's nothing bipartisan about this tale, which is all about the use and abuse of Republican connections.Well, that was direct and in your face. This wasn't written by an angry wacko commenter, this is written by a peer who thinks that you can't do basic math without a calculator. All those years of experience don't seem to have done you any good or garnered you any respect with your colleagues, are you and Brady going to continue to whine? A little Limburger to go along with that, maybe it will cover up the stink of corruption.
Yet over the past few weeks a number of journalists, ranging from The Washington Post's ombudsman to the 'Today' show's Katie Couric, have declared that Mr. Abramoff gave money to both parties. In each case the journalists or their news organization, when challenged, grudgingly conceded that Mr. Abramoff himself hasn't given a penny to Democrats. But in each case they claimed that this is only a technical point, because Mr. Abramoff's clients — those Indian tribes — gave money to Democrats as well as Republicans, money the news organizations say he 'directed' to Democrats.
But the tribes were already giving money to Democrats before Mr. Abramoff entered the picture; he persuaded them to reduce those Democratic donations, while giving much more money to Republicans. A study commissioned by The American Prospect shows that the tribes' donations to Democrats fell by 9 percent after they hired Mr. Abramoff, while their contributions to Republicans more than doubled. So in any normal sense of the word 'directed,' Mr. Abramoff directed funds away from Democrats, not toward them."
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