Decision ‘08

Harry Reid: A Man In Trouble

As TIME publishes a picture of George W. Bush in the same room with, though 50 feet away from, Jack Abramoff (a similar feat could be accomplished with at least 20,000 other people, I suspect), the AP continues to bring down a slow-moving death sentence on the career of Democratic leader Harry Reid:

Ronald Platt, a lobbyist who worked with Abramoff at the Greenberg Traurig firm between 2001 and 2004, said he contacted Reid’s office in 2001, as the billing records show, about the timing of minimum wage legislation affecting one of Abramoff’s clients, the Northern Mariana Islands.

“When Abramoff first arrived at Greenberg Traurig, I did a new colleague a favor by simply asking Reid staffers about when the minimum wage legislation affecting the Mariana Islands would be voted upon by the Senate. I communicated this to Abramoff,” Platt said in a statement e-mailed Friday evening to The Associated Press.

The AP reported on Thursday that lobbying firm billing records obtained under public records law from the Marianas showed that Abramoff billed the islands for 21 contacts in 2001 with Reid’s office.

The records listed the minimum wage as the issue and Platt as the point of contact for most of those contacts. Platt had registered with the Senate in 2001 to lobby for the Marianas as well as for some Abramoff tribal clients.

Reid’s office confirmed this week it had “routine contact” with Platt over the years on lobbying issues such as the Marianas and American Indian tribes, but said it could not verify all the contacts listed in the billing records.

In his statement, Platt sought to minimize the extent of his lobbying of Reid’s office on behalf of Abramoff, saying he never considered himself “part of Team Abramoff.” Abramoff has pleaded guilty in a fraud and bribery case.

“These contacts were incidental, insofar as I simply bumped into Reid staffers at Democratic Party functions or occurred incidental to discussions regarding my clients, not Abramoff’s,” Platt said. “Any contacts that I may have had in regard to Abramoff’s tribal clients would have been similarly incidental.”

Yes, incidental…in the way that my showing up to work is incidental to my receiving a paycheck…

So, let’s recap - Bush, with a barely visible Abramoff way off in the corner - evil Republican! Harry Reid, with dozens of contacts with Abramoff’s partners and toadies, with 4 letters written on behalf of Abramoff clients, with numerous ‘incidental’ contacts that incidentally took place in his office and other such indicental locations - unjustly maligned man of the people!…

This is going to be fun…

UPDATE 5:31 p.m.: Note Josh Marshall’s coverage of three Republican lawmakers linked to Abramoff today: “The specifics are more instances of writing letters on behalf of or favoring Abramoff clients.” From the AP, on Thursday:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid wrote at least four letters helpful to Indian tribes represented by Jack Abramoff, and the senator’s staff regularly had contact with the disgraced lobbyist’s team about legislation affecting other clients.

Now, I leave it up to you to decide (cough - hypocrite! - cough) if the pot isn’t commenting on the pigment of the kettle…

9 Responses to “Harry Reid: A Man In Trouble”

1 dmac Says:
February 11th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
I’ve never understood why the Dems elected Reid as their leader in the first place. He’s a terrible speaker, and regardless of seniority, the party out of power should at least get someone to state their case demonstrably, without any signs of surrounding taint.

We could lump in Pelosi in that argument regarding a poor public personae, but why belabour the obvious?
2 Clint Says:
February 11th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
dmac-

My suspicion (both when Senator Reid was chosen as Minority Leader and when Governer Kaine was chosen to deliver the SOTU response) is that the Democrats are so strongly divided that none of the strong Democratic politicians is willing either to step into the spotlight (and risk drawing fire, like Tom Daschle did) or to allow one of their ‘competitors’ to do so. Of course, I’ve always believed that the DLC branch of the party let Howard Dean take the DNC chair to take him out of the equation for ‘08.
3 Fred Says:
February 12th, 2006 at 1:11 am
So Harry Reid, the man who bragged only a few months ago to “killing the Patriot Act,” has now decided to back it after 3 minor changes. Except for strengthening the Democrats’ public preception as the party with linguine for a spine, what exactly did he accomplish?
4 AcademicElephant Says:
February 12th, 2006 at 9:09 am
So Reid will go down in flames and everyone will respond with a collective yawn. Who will replace him as leader? Durbin?
5 Mark Says:
February 12th, 2006 at 10:29 am
Lord, I should hope not…
6 AcademicElephant Says:
February 12th, 2006 at 11:07 am
It’s food for thought.
7 dmac Says:
February 12th, 2006 at 12:29 pm
Please, anyone but Dickie for that job - we’re already sick of him here (in IL) - even Daley can’t stomach him anymore.
8 peter Says:
February 12th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
I would like to see Russ Feingold in that position. He’s ideologically consistent, more articulate, and more telegenic.
9 Owen Says:
February 12th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
I don’t know about the Indian clients, but I thought Josh Marshall’s coverage of the Reid stuff was interesting. It’s worth noting that in the Marshall Islands stuff, Reid voted against the interests of Abramoff’s clients on the pertinent issues. I’m not saying he’s in the clear, but there has been a big flap from the Republican side of the aisle about not getting people for being merely guilty by association. (That’s not to say that some prominent Democrats haven’t been attempting to prosecute people based on association). Here’s the link to the appropriate article (with links to previous posts on the subject within):

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007660.php

My hope is that dealing with this will give overzealous Democrats pause so they’ll wind things down a bit and settle on the much more plausible plan of pursuing only those who have actually done something wrong, not just capitalizing on the fact that a lot of people had contact with a bad person. I think that, as with the idiotic impeachment mania, some Democrats are trying to win the whole fight in one fell swoop, instead of pursuing the more reasonable route of stern oversight, a reasonable route that they’ve left Specter to take up.

Sigh. I wish there were more good Democrats.