Fighting the Everybody Does It Defense

Phoenix Woman at Kos has a great post about how the GOP is trying to push this "everybody does it" defense to respond to the overwhelming evidence of corruption in their ranks, and how the Democrats are getting better and better at stopping it in its tracks.

For example, yesterday Dem Senator Byron Dorgan appeared to be implicated in the Jack Abramoff investigation, the claim being that he received cash contributions from Abramoff in exchange for Indian tribe funding legislation. Dorgan shot it right down.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., took the unprecedented step Monday of publicly denouncing an Associated Press article he said inaccurately suggested he did favors for Jack Abramoff, a lobbyist being investigated for bilking tribes out of millions of dollars.

Last week's Associated Press story, written by John Solomon and Sharon Theimer, reported that Dorgan and Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., received campaign contributions from Indian tribes and Abramoff's law firm around the time they signed a letter Feb. 11, 2002, asking the Senate Appropriations Committee for an extension of funding for an Indian program. The program puts tribes' school construction projects higher on the list for federal funding if tribes agree to pay for half the costs. The AP says it stands by the story.

It turns out the main source for the AP story was "a lawyer for the Louisiana Coushatta Indians" named Jimmy Faircloth, who is little more than a Republican lobbyist. Dorgan got money from the tribe before Abramoff was hired to represent them, and he supported funding the project before getting the money. But the AP got spun by part of the Republican Noise Machine in order to push the line that "everybody does it."

But the party in power has so much more opportunity to "do it," especially if they mount an aggressive campaign to purge ALL Democrats from lobbying organizations, an insidious scheme called the K Street Project. Tom DeLay has been doing this for years. GOP leaders literally get lists of job openings from lobbyists and pick who they want to fill those positions. The whole idea is to cut out campaign contributions to Democrats, and to cut Democratic Congressmen out of the wheeling and dealing on Capitol Hill. Now there are allegations of a corrupt quid pro quo relationship between lobbyists and the GOP, and their repsonse is "everybody does it"? Then why is K Street so mad that they don't have any influence with certain top Democrats?

...Some lobbyists were annoyed that the party’s campaign arm has been reaching out to them more than (Nancy) Pelosi’s office has.

Since the departure this summer of Chief of Staff George Crawford, Pelosi’s office has not been holding its Friday meeting with lobbyists on a regular basis, said several attendees.

“They’ve canceled them a lot more often than they’ve had them,” said one regular attendee.

Democratic sources could recall only two or three meetings occurring since the new chief of staff, John Lawrence, took over in July.

“It’s all about a relationship,” said another frequent attendee. “More communication is always better.”

So the lobbyists can't even get the ear of the House Minority Leader, but all politicians are the same and they're all taking money from lobbyists and this is the criminalization of politics, etc., etc., etc.

Josh Marshall is collecting "nice tries," instances of the media trying to push this line of "everybody does it." Here's his setup, which lays it all out brilliantly:

There is one Democratic member of Congress who is currently the target of a Justice Department investigation, Rep. William Jefferson of New Orleans. There are also various Democrats who received money from Jack Abramoff or his many clients.

But let's get real. The Abramoff story is overwhelmingly a Republican scandal. Abramoff's whole racket was as a paymaster and slush-funder for the DC GOP machine.

Then there are the half-a-dozen Republican members of Congress being investigated for criminal infractions arising out of the Abramoff investigation. Then there are all their staffers.

Then there is Abramoff-Norquist associate David Safavian, chief of procurement at OMB who was arrested and indicted for deceiving investigators in the Abramoff case.

Then there are the GOP capos who skimmed money off the Abramoff geyser or laundered money for him, folks like Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed.

The Duke Cunningham scandal is a Republican scandal, which we'll soon see spreads into the Rumsfeld Defense Department.

The Abramoff scandal tracks into the Interior Department and the GSA.

Then there's Tom DeLay, remember him, former House Majority Leader, now under indictment in Texas. Set aside that he's also implicated in the Abramoff scandal and quite probably the Duke Cunningham scandal as well.

And then in the other body you've got Sen. Bill Frist who is at the center of a criminal investigation into his stock sales. Frist is actually sort of unique in that it's possible he may not be guilty.

Two Republican members of Congress are under indictment.

Prosecutors have already accused two of taking bribes.

These few examples only scratch the surface. And I've left aside the Fitzgerald investigation because it doesn't turn on money but pure old-fashioned abuse of power.

Yet, Republican media types have been leaning hard yesterday and today on reporters to push the bipartisan corruption line, even though the simple facts of the case simply give no basis for it whatsoever.

It's actually close to laughable.

Indeed.