Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean denied on Sunday that any Democrats had taken money from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, even though several top Democrats -- including Sen. Hillary Clinton -- have already announced they were giving their tainted Abramoff cash to charity.

That little detail didn't faze Dean, however -- who insisted with a straight face to CNN's Wolf Blitzer:

"There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, not one, not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican. Every person under investigation is a Republican. Every person indicted is a Republican.

Dean continued: "This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money. And we've looked through all of those FEC reports to make sure that's true."

Last week, Sen. Clinton's office announced that she would be donating $2,000 of her Abramoff jackpot to charity. The Republican National Committee says she took a total of $12,900 in Abramoff-linked cash.

Other Democrats who have pledged to return tainted donations include Senators Tim Johnson and Barbara Mikulski -- as well as leading House Democrat Charles Rangel.

Republicans are desperate to muddy the waters -- a time-tested tactic to mislead the electorate -- in the hopes of making the Abramoff 'Republican Scandal' into the first bipartisan effort of the new year.

They broke out the weasel words and phrases like 'Abramoff-tainted' or 'Abramoff-linked' -- in essence suggesting that anyone who ever did business with Abramoff was somehow transformed into his 'agents', thus tainting any subsequent donations from those entities as 'Abramoff-Linked'.

In fact, so worried about the 'Abramoff Republican scandal' is President Bush that his Aides are now focused squarely on the numerous Abramoff visits to the White House.

Bush Administration officials, "bracing for the worst," have "obtained from the Secret Service a list of all the times Abramoff entered the White House complex, and they scrambled to determine the reason for each visit. Bush aides are also trying to identify all the photos that may exist of the two men together. Abramoff attended Hanukkah and holiday events at the White House, according to an aide who has seen the list. Press secretary Scott McClellan said Abramoff might have attended large gatherings with Bush but added, 'The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him.'"

Despite President Bush's claimed lack of personal ties to Abramoff (akin to his lack of ties to 'Kenny-Boy' Lay??), his administration has certainly worked to welcome Abramoff into the oval office.

In President Bush's first 10 months, GOP fundraiser Jack Abramoff and his lobbying team logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration as they pressed for friendly hires at federal agencies and sought to keep the Northern Mariana Islands exempt from the minimum wage and other laws, records show.

And Bush has even publicized his efforts to return $6,000 of his ill-begotten "Jacky-Boy" Abramoff kickback cash for good measure. Strangely, though, they have no qualms about retaining the $100,000 that Abramoff raised for Bush as one of his beloved pioneers.

Of course admitting the truth of Dean's statement will never be part of the GOP 2006 Strategy, so we'll have to weed out the truth of this 'Republican Scandal' ourselves.

So expect the GOP to relentlessly pursue their strategy of 'Cloudy Skies, Muddy Waters' when it comes to the Abramoff Republican Scandal (among others). And be prepared to set the world straight.

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