GOP: Religious Right 'Wacko'

"Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

-- GOP fund-raiser Michael Scanlon

Via Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest we are directed to Salon.com (subscription required), where Michael Shearer reports on a rare glimpse inside the cynical skull of one of Tom Delay's closest pals: the Christian Right, this guy thinks, is merely a useful bunch of "wackos."

Johnson reports today:

Jack Abramoff and his former business partner Michael Scanlon... stand accused of exploiting Native American tribes to the tune of roughly $66 million, laundering that money into bank accounts they controlled and then using it to buy favors for powerful members of Congress and the executive branch.

But they sure did know how to play the game.

Consider one memo highlighted in a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday that Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, sent... to describe ... the source code of recent Republican electoral victories: target religious conservatives, distract everyone else, and then railroad through complex initiatives.

"The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees," Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them."

The committee hearings are being chaired by Arizona senator John McCain. He's taken on the impossible task of trying the peel back just one of the curtains draped over the criminal schemes of the Republican Party's main money man, Jack Abramoff. He can't get far because at the same time various federal prosecutors and grand juries are trying to put Abramoff and associates in prison for everything from bribery, extortion, racketeering, and perjury to murder.

The Abramoff story is no ordinary Washington scandal. As veteran journalist Robert Sheer wrote a few weeks ago, "[T]he defining case study on the deep corruption of the Bush administration and the GOP is emerging from the myriad investigations of well-connected Republican fundraiser and lobbyist Jack Abramoff."

Although the public's attention may be on Scooter Libby, intertwining probes of Bush buddy Jack Abramoff's multifarious misdeeds is far more likely to bring down a heap of Republican politicians. Long-time political reporter Elizabeth Drew explained why in the New York Review of Books (subscription required) early last Summer:

Abramoff's behavior is symptomatic of the unprecedented corruption — the intensified buying and selling of influence over legislation and federal policy — that has become endemic in Washington under a Republican Congress and White House. Corruption has always been present in Washington, but in recent years it has become more sophisticated, pervasive, and blatant than ever. A friend of mine who works closely with lobbyists says, "There are no restraints now; business groups and lobbyists are going crazy — they're in every room on Capitol Hill writing the legislation. You can't move on the Hill without giving money."

She wrote that before Abramoff was arrested for fraud, his partner was implicated in the gangland-style killing of South Florida gambling boat owner Konstantin Boulis, Tim Flanigan had to withdraw as deputy attorney general, and George W. Bush's chief of federal procurement was indicted.

A lot of Republicans in Washington may be corrupt. But they aren't all that stupid.

While we ordinary people watch Plamegate unfold, and the supporting chorus of religious 'wackos' gets energized over the Alito nomination, Republicans in the know are watching the Abramoff prosecutions.

Why? Because that's where their money has come from.

As former Minnesota congressman Vin Weber told the Washington Post last month, "The one [scandal] that people are most worried about is Abramoff, because it seems to have such long tentacles. This seems to be something that could spread almost anywhere. That has a lot of people worried."

edited title 11/4/05