The Liberal Patriot

It’s Not Just About Iraq – Stupid

J. G. Schwam - January 15, 2006

Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran who retired as a colonel after 37 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, told the CBS ``60 Minutes'' show. ``I think the vast majority [of US troops in Iraq] will be out by the end of the year and I'm hopeful it will be sooner than that,'' Murtha the top Democrat on the House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees defense spending said that mounting pressure from voters tired of the war could affect this year's midterm election and force Bush to devise a plan to pull U.S. troops from Iraq. ``You're going to see a plan for withdrawal,'' said.

Whether Murtha is overly optimistic or painting an insiders view of the next spin strategy of Karl Rove’s manage perception, not the truth politics, ore one borne of desperation for the political survival of Bush and his minions, only time will tell.

In November though, the electoral outcome of the Senate and House races will not just be about Iraq. The daily of expansion of the tentacles of the Abramoff affair are quickly proving to be a scandal that makes Teapot Dome and Watergate look a game of tiddlywinks in comparison.

The strategy at the heart of this scandal goes back to the roots of the scorched earth political strategies formed in seventies by Abramoff while chair of the College Republicans, Grover Norquist at the dawn of his American Taxpayers Association, and a then young Georgia student named Ralph Reed, who would later be a the forefront of the Christian Coalition and a small others.

Another who came up through the ranks of Republican youthful activism, Edwin A. Buckham founder of Abramoff’s employer the Alexander Strategy Group and a long time affiliate and benefactor of DeLay as well as a growing number public officials who employed or benefited from a series of what appear to be front groups, slush funds and political money-laundering operations, announced lat Monday that due to recent bad publicity ASG was shutting down. It was ASG that paid DeLay's wife at least $115,000 in consulting fees. The lobby firm also provided office space to "Americans for a Republican Majority," DeLay's fundraising organization. It seems as though that DeLay’s Texas indictment will only be the tip of his Iceberg of corruption, greed and money laundering.

The Abramoff affair as has already been widely reported is rapidly engulfing an expanding cadre of congressman, senators, cabinet secretaries and other lobbying firms.

At least one lobbyist cum-under-secretary, J Steven Griles are along with his confidant, Italia Federici former staffer and confidant of his boss Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton, Italia Federici are scambling like a squirrels on an interstate to get out from under the paper trail of his decades long relationship with Abramoff. Federici is now president of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), another GOP front group whos pro-environmental sounding name belies its underlying disengenuous purpose.

Even the president himself gave away what was likely a fraction of the monies he received from Abramoff in a too late attempt to wash away the widening stain Abramoff’s web of money laundering and bribery has left not just his administration but his entire party, dirty. Abramoff is closely linked to Tom Delay and was a co-founder of the K-Street Project along with Delay. This strategy is rooted at most basic levels of the political and moral strategy of the Republican parties seize power any cost goal formulated in the aftermath of the devastating reversal of public trust their party suffered in the wake of Watergate and later the Iran Contra scandal.

No Congressman Murtha, it will be not be the Iraq war alone and whether or not we stay there that may likely displace the GOP majority hold on Capitol Hill this fall. It will be the age old stain of too many lies, too much money and corruption and tangled web they weave that may very well take down the GOP’s political hegemony this November.

If the GOP falls, It’s DeLay, Ney, Abramoff, Reed and all the others that have lain down, like pigs at the trough with them that will taken them down, along with all the others that failed to speak out when they had the chance.

It’s not about Iraq, Its corruption stupid - It gets the voters out like nothing else, every time.

Editors Note: the title of this commentary is not intended to imply in any way that congressman Murtha is stupid, it is rather intended solely as a twist on the popular phrase “it’s the economy stupid”

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