Bush lies once again

[strandinthewind]

and they call the a$$hole the leader of the morally superior. What a facrce

Sunday, Jan. 22, 2006
When George Met Jack
White House aides deny the President knew lobbyist Abramoff, but unpublished photos shown to TIME suggest there's more to the story
By ADAM ZAGORIN, MIKE ALLEN

As details poured out about the illegal and unseemly activities of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, White House officials sought to portray the scandal as a Capitol Hill affair with little relevance to them. Peppered for days with questions about Abramoff's visits to the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the now disgraced lobbyist had attended two huge holiday receptions and a few "staff-level meetings" that were not worth describing further. "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him," McClellan said.

The President's memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White House coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s.

In one shot that TIME saw, Bush appears with Abramoff, several unidentified people and Raul Garza Sr., a Texan Abramoff represented who was then chairman of the Kickapoo Indians, which owned a casino in southern Texas. Garza, who is wearing jeans and a bolo tie in the picture, told TIME that Bush greeted him as "Jefe," or "chief" in Spanish. Another photo shows Bush shaking hands with Abramoff in front of a window and a blue drape. The shot bears Bush's signature, perhaps made by a machine. Three other photos are of Bush, Abramoff and, in each view, one of the lobbyist's sons (three of his five children are boys). A sixth picture shows several Abramoff children with Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who is now pushing to tighten lobbying laws after declining to do so last year when the scandal was in its early stages.

Most of the pictures have the formal look of photos taken at presidential receptions. The images of Bush, Abramoff and one of his sons appear to be the rapid-fire shots--known in White House parlance as clicks-- that the President snaps with top supporters before taking the podium at fund-raising receptions. Over five years, Bush has posed for tens of thousands of such shots--many with people he does not know. Last month 9,500 people attended holiday receptions at the White House, and most went two by two through a line for a photo with the President and the First Lady. The White House is generous about providing copies--in some cases, signed by the President--that become centerpieces for "walls of fame" throughout status-conscious Washington.

Abramoff knew the game. In a 2001 e-mail to a lawyer for tribal leader Lovelin Poncho, he crows about an upcoming meeting at the White House that he had arranged for Poncho and says it should be a priceless asset in his client's upcoming re-election campaign as chief of Louisiana's Coushatta Indians. "By all means mention [in the tribal newsletter] that the Chief is being asked to confer with the President and is coming to Washington for this purpose in May," Abramoff writes. "We'll definitely have a photo from the opportunity, which he can use." The lawyer had asked about attire, and Abramoff advises, "As to dress, probably suit and tie would work best."

The e-mail, now part of a wide-ranging federal investigation into lobbying practices and lobbyists' relationships with members of Congress, offers a window into Abramoff's willingness to trade on ties to the White House and to invoke Bush's name to impress clients who were spending tens of millions of dollars on Abramoff's advice.

Abramoff was once in better graces at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, having raised at least $100,000 for the President's re-election campaign. During 2001 and 2002, his support for Republicans and connections to the White House won him invitations to Hanukkah receptions, each attended by 400 to 500 people. McClellan has said Abramoff may have been present at "other widely attended" events. He was also admitted to the White House complex for meetings with several staff members, including one with presidential senior adviser Karl Rove, one of the most coveted invitations in Washington.

Michael Scanlon, who is Abramoff's former partner and has pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe a Congressman, in 2001 told the New Times of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., that Abramoff had "a relationship" with the President. "He doesn't have a bat phone or anything, but if he wanted an appointment, he would have one," Scanlon said. Nonsense, say others. A former White House official familiar with some Abramoff requests to the White House said Abramoff had some meetings with Administration officials in 2001 and 2002, but he was later frozen out because aides became suspicious of his funding sources and annoyed that the issues he raised did not mesh with their agenda. A top Republican official said it was clear to him that Abramoff couldn't pick up the phone and reach Bush aides because Abramoff had asked the official to serve as an intermediary.

The White House describes the number of Abramoff's meetings with staff members only as "a few," even though senior Bush aides have precise data about them. McClellan will not give details, saying he doesn't "get into discussing staff-level meetings." During a televised briefing, he added, "We're not going to engage in a fishing expedition." Pressed for particulars about Abramoff's White House contacts, McClellan said with brio, "People are insinuating things based on no evidence whatsoever." But he said he cannot "say with absolute certainty that [Abramoff] did not have any other visits" apart from those disclosed. Another White House official said, "The decision was made don't put out any additional information." That reticence has been eagerly seized upon by some Democrats. Senate minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada wrote to Bush last week to demand details, saying Abramoff "may have had undue and improper influence within your Administration."

Garza, the bolo-wearing former chairman of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, has fond memories of his session with Bush, which he said was held in 2001 in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House. According to e-mails in the hands of investigators, the meeting was arranged with the help of Abramoff and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. In an April 18, 2001, e-mail to Abramoff, Norquist wrote that he would be "honored" if Abramoff "could come to the White House meeting."

Garza--known in his native Kickapoo language as Makateonenodua, or black buffalo--is under federal indictment for allegedly embezzling more than $300,000 from his tribe. Through his spokesman, Garza said that during the session, Bush talked about policy matters and thanked those present for supporting his agenda, then took questions from the audience of about two dozen people. Garza told TIME, "We were very happy that Jack Abramoff helped us to be with the President. Bush was in a very good mood--very upbeat and positive." No evidence has emerged that the Bush Administration has done anything for the Kickapoo at Abramoff's behest.

Three attendees who spoke to TIME recall that Abramoff was present, and three of them say that's where the picture of Bush, Abramoff and the former Kickapoo chairman was taken. The White House has a different description of the event Garza attended. "The President stopped by a meeting with 21 state legislators and two tribal leaders," spokeswoman Erin Healy said. "Available records show that Mr. Abramoff was not in attendance."

With reporting by With reporting by Massimo Calabresi/ Washington

Copyright © 2006 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...0.html?cnn=yes

[Rickypt]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

and they call the a$$hole the leader of the morally superior. What a facrce

That's what pisses me off the most. He ran as someone who was going to restore honor to the White House and people ate that up.

[estranged4life]

havent ya realized that Bush's favorite day of the week to lie is any day ending in the letter "Y"?

Brian "Get a move on....sheeeesh" j.

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by Rickypt

That's what pisses me off the most. He ran as someone who was going to restore honor to the White House and people ate that up.

I had to look twice at "honor" because I initially perceived it as "horror". That is more like what he's actually brought to the office and our country. Now off to read the above article...

On edit: Ahh, the old "I don't know Jack Abramoff" line. That's a good one. Give me an I! Give me an M! Give me a P! Give me an E! (ACH). This is a little more serious a lie than "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Bastard.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by SuzeQuze

I had to look twice at "honor" because I initially perceived it as "horror". That is more like what he's actually brought to the office and our country. Now off to read the above article...

On edit: Ahh, the old "I don't know Jack Abramoff" line. That's a good one. Give me an I! Give me an M! Give me a P! Give me an E! (ACH). This is a little more serious a lie than "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Bastard.

Did you see Rachel Maddow on MSNBC recently? She was talking about the Osama tape with F*cker Carlson and mocked it by saying:

"'This is a global war on terror! This is a war for us to win! You need patience!' He sounds like Ken Mehlman when he's saying that, only less gay."

I was laughing so hard that my whole building practically vibrated. F*cker Carlson was SPEECHLESS. I wish I had a vid of it.

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by dissention

Did you see Rachel Maddow on MSNBC recently? She was talking about the Osama tape with F*cker Carlson and mocked it by saying:

"'This is a global war on terror! This is a war for us to win! You need patience!' He sounds like Ken Mehlman when he's saying that, only less gay."

I was laughing so hard that my whole building practically vibrated. F*cker Carlson was SPEECHLESS. I wish I had a vid of it.

Was she talking about the president? Do you suppose they'll have her on again? I think she's great and would rather listen to her than Marin any day so the switch in her program time is very cool to me.

On edit: Diss, it's here, off to watch... http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...=search_videos

[Rickypt]

Originally Posted by dissention

Did you see Rachel Maddow on MSNBC recently? She was talking about the Osama tape with F*cker Carlson and mocked it by saying:

"'This is a global war on terror! This is a war for us to win! You need patience!' He sounds like Ken Mehlman when he's saying that, only less gay."

I was laughing so hard that my whole building practically vibrated. F*cker Carlson was SPEECHLESS. I wish I had a vid of it.

Saw it, I love her. I knew her when she was an intern at an AIDS organization in SF in the mid-90's.

I often watch the first few minutes of Tucker's dumb show so I can catch Rachel.

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by Rickypt

Saw it, I love her. I knew her when she was an intern at an AIDS organization in SF in the mid-90's.

I often watch the first few minutes of Tucker's dumb show so I can catch Rachel.

Is she on often? I can't stand him, what a little twit.

[DavidMn]

Originally Posted by Rickypt

That's what pisses me off the most. He ran as someone who was going to restore honor to the White House and people ate that up.

Hey, you havent heard about any semen stains on dresses from interns have you? (this is a joke btw)

[Rickypt]

Originally Posted by SuzeQuze

Is she on often? I can't stand him, what a little twit.

I think she's on every night for the first few minutes. I don't like him either, and I hate the whole programming with the topics listed on the side, etc. I also hate when he brings on that guy from ESPN or something and for a while he'd banter with his producer which was always dumb. Things might have changed, but I can't sit through the whole show. I'm pissed they shifted Hardball to make room; I enjoy that show.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by Rickypt

I think she's on every night for the first few minutes. I don't like him either, and I hate the whole programming with the topics listed on the side, etc. I also hate when he brings on that guy from ESPN or something and for a while he'd banter with his producer which was always dumb. Things might have changed, but I can't sit through the whole show. I'm pissed they shifted Hardball to make room; I enjoy that show.

Tweety Matthews provokes violent reactions from me. I can't deal with that piece of ****; same with Russert, Scarborough, Foghorn Leghorn Cosby, and F*cker Carlson.

Carlson has a nasty side to him that makes my teeth gnash. I found it highly amusing that he accused Grover Norquist of being "mean-spirited creep" while he sits on the telly and pokes fun at little girls who are disembowled by jacuzzi spas. And then there's that whole sex scandal that reads like something out of Weekly World News.

[Rickypt]

Originally Posted by dissention

Tweety Matthews provokes violent reactions from me.

He pisses me off often, but I find that he facilitates much more thoughtful and substantive political discussion among his guests. He has an overall love for politics that the other talk show hosts don't demonstrate.

[SuzeQuze]

Originally Posted by dissention

...

Carlson has a nasty side to him that makes my teeth gnash. I found it highly amusing that he accused Grover Norquist of being "mean-spirited creep" while he sits on the telly and pokes fun at little girls who are disembowled by jacuzzi spas. And then there's that whole sex scandal that reads like something out of Weekly World News.

He has a sex scandal too! Eww. He was so patronizing to Maddows, "I wasn't saying that at all [increase pitch with every word]." Yuck yuck yuck! Bin Laden got his talking points from the dems. That is the most rediculous thing I've heard yet from Cucker.

[DavidMn]

Originally Posted by dissention

Tweety Matthews provokes violent reactions from me. I can't deal with that piece of ****; same with Russert, Scarborough, Foghorn Leghorn Cosby, and F*cker Carlson.

Carlson has a nasty side to him that makes my teeth gnash. I found it highly amusing that he accused Grover Norquist of being "mean-spirited creep" while he sits on the telly and pokes fun at little girls who are disembowled by jacuzzi spas. And then there's that whole sex scandal that reads like something out of Weekly World News.

Chris Matthews looks like he's in a permanent state of constipation.

[skcin]

The knowledge that Bush is our president makes me feel physically ill every time I think about it. The man is a joke, I don't respect him & I'm embarrassed for us as a nation. No wonder everyone hates us. The man is a dolt, a bumbling, stuttering fool, an ignorant ass. He sure as hell doesn't represent me.