Dems Don’t Know Jack

The Republicans have been trying to insist all month long (don't they get tired?) that the Abramoff scandal is a bipartisan one, as if it were just another general debate over DC ethics. Ignore that Abramoff was a Republican lobbyist who never contributed to Democrats, that he had ties to Delay's K Street Project, and was a "pioneer" Bush campaign contributer. Besides just outright lies about Dems getting money from Abramoff, the best they had to go on was the idea that by accepting legitimate and unrelated donations from Indian tribes that Abramoff had connections to (and was robbing), that they were somehow complicit as well. The Republicans have been getting help with this lie from the clueless members of the media. A new report further knocks down this talking point. Will the media pay attention?

The American Prospect: Dems Don’t Know Jack-

A Prospect exclusive: A new analysis of Abramoff tribal money by a nonpartisan firm shows it’s a Republican scandal

A new and extensive analysis of campaign donations from all of Jack Abramoff’s tribal clients, done by a nonpartisan research firm, shows that a great majority of contributions made by those clients went to Republicans. The analysis undercuts the claim that Abramoff directed sums to Democrats at anywhere near the same rate...

...[T]he Morris and Associates analysis, which was done exclusively for The Prospect, clearly shows that it’s highly misleading to suggest that the tribes's giving to Dems was in any way comparable to their giving to the GOP. The analysis shows that when Abramoff took on his tribal clients, the majority of them dramatically ratcheted up donations to Republicans. Meanwhile, donations to Democrats from the same clients either dropped, remained largely static or, in two cases, rose by a far smaller percentage than the ones to Republicans did. This pattern suggests that whatever money went to Democrats, rather than having been steered by Abramoff, may have largely been money the tribes would have given anyway...

The report features a detailed analysis of the donations.

Robert Schlesinger summarizes the findings: Puncturing the Abramoff Bipartisan Scandal Myth

This debate is settled. Now both parties please get back to your half-assed reform plans.

[In related news, Sen. Santorum tries to deny his K-Street ties.]