Dare to comment? Observe the rules!
Looks like a lot of the most offensive postings were deleted by the WaPo either before or after it was taken down--a few comments towards the bottom of the pages supports this.
So that appears to be why there's little evidence of the kind you're looking for.
You can find more here:
http://newslinker.blogspot.com/2...r-
comments.html
I think you have a pretty fundamental attribution mistake here. The "But there are things that we said we would not allow..." block quote doesn't actually come from Howell. Here's the entire post:
"Posted at 04:22 PM ET, 01/19/2006
Comments Turned Off
As of 4:15 p.m. ET today, we have shut off comments on this blog indefinitely.
At its inception, the purpose of this blog was to open a dialogue about this site, the events of the day, the journalism of The Washington Post Company and other related issues. Among the things that we knew would be part of that discussion would be the news and opinion coming from the pages of The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com. We knew a lot of that discussion would be critical in nature. And we were fine with that. Great journalism companies need feedback from readers to stay sharp.
But there are things that we said we would not allow, including personal attacks, the use of profanity and hate speech. Because a significant number of folks who have posted in this blog have refused to follow any of those relatively simple rules, we've decided not to allow comments for the time being. It's a shame that it's come to this. Transparency and reasoned debate are crucial parts of the Web culture, and it's a disappointment to us that we have not been able to maintain a civil conversation, especially about issues that people feel strongly (and differently) about.
We're not giving up on the concept of having a healthy public dialogue with our readers, but this experience shows that we need to think more carefully about how we do it. Any thoughtful feedback on that (or any other issue) is welcome, and you can send it to executive.editor@washingtonpost.com.
Thanks,
Jim Brady
Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com"
So that which you are attributing to Howell actually appears to have been written by Jim Brady. Maybe it's a minor point but it seems pretty important to get the players correct.
Good work, great blog!
Wouldn't it have been kinda helpful if you said what all the fuss was about it?
Howell had written that Abramoff had contributed to "both" parties. This simply isn't true -- he coughed up $127,000 to Republicans, and not a nickel to Democrats.
She got called on an obvious error. I expect there is a reason you didn't you bother to write what it was: perhaps you should be candid and say it aloud.
She compounded her initial error by saying the line you quoted, that Abramoff "directed" contributions.
This is precisely the sorta writing that gets conservatives ticked off when (often falsely) they claim it is inaccurate, misleading, or both, which at the very least shows in this fairly significant incident, it isn't the Post's so called "liberal bias" that's at fault, but a deeper sort of arrogance that, oddly enough, in this case you seem to approve.
You can't "better phrase" a false statement. Abramoff did not contribute to Democrats -- ever, not once -- so the statement he contributed to both parties is simply false.
Howell would've done better to say so, and move on.
And you woulda done better to say precisely what her error was, instead of perpetuating the confusion.
The phrasing she hallucinated was "better", was at least as inaccurate because it was fundamentally misleading.
Abramoff couldn't "direct" what his clients were doing before they hired him. Since they had been contributing to Democrats before, the only thing he could have "directed" them to do was to maintain the same level, increase it, or decrease it.
The nature of his 'direction' is a matter of record: Abramoff clients, as part of the K Street Project, increased the amounts they were contributing to Republicans, and decreased what they were giving to Democrats.
So the accurate way to phrase it would have been to note that Abraham never contributed to Democrats, only to Republicans, and he directed his clients to give more to Republicans, and less to Democrats.
Since Abramoff is now a convicted, self-confessed felon, reporting the nature of his work accurately is sorta key, don't ya think?
You're correct, Will. It's the Jim Brady thing but it was Howell who wrote about the Abramoff article. I think both parties went the wrong way with this thing by agreeing (together, I suppose) to shut it down and delete the whole thing.
Try searching for "whore" at the WaPo lies site and you'll start to get an idea of the very real abuse that was going on. Check out "Thurston Howell III"'s substance-free post.
theAmericanist,
I hate to tell you, but the Democrats are not drawing a distinction between donations from Abramoff and donations "directed" by him. If you read the DNC's press releases on this matter, they make a big deal about both types of donations.
But it's not the first time that stones were thrown from the DNC's crystal palace...
The Democrats are not so clean...
The 2004 piece cited by this blog author in fact doesn't indict Democrats with Abramoff at all. It doesn't mention that Democrats received any money directed by Abramoff:
From the blogger's citation:
The fees and $2.9 million in federal political contributions Abramoff advised the tribes to make, two-thirds of it to Republicans, have led to battles in some tribes. Some tribe members question why their leaders approved such payments.
Abramoff also directed tribes to donate to several obscure foundations that appear to have no connection to Indian concerns, including a think tank in Rehoboth Beach, Del., set up by Scanlon
2/3 when to Republicans. From the way this is written, the rest went to the "obscure foundations".
There is no evidence that Democrats received any money from Abramoff either from him personally or at his direction. And it doesn't make sense that Abramoff would give money to Dems. He's a Republican. His stated purpose was to eliminate liberals and Democrats from DC politics.
Republicans need to own up to their corruption and stop whining about "Democrats do it too". No, they don't.
Carla, Carla, Carla...let's deal in reality here. Sheesh...
http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/pol...-
11738082c.html
Oh...and if you don't want to register, the distinguished Democratic list includes:
Charles Rangel D-NY
Hillary Rodham Clinton D-NY
Patty Murray D-WA
Maria Cantwell D-WA
Harry Reid D-NV
I guess that Byron Dorgan (D-ND) just had $67,000 in spare change that he wanted to get rid of.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp...5121301582.html
In politics, corruption does exist among some/many Democrat and Republican politicians. Now, if Democrats are not worried about the Abramoff's money, then they do not need to try and give Abramoff's money over to charities.
Montie Montie Montie...none of those you cited had money directed to them by Abramoff. All were either recipients of funds before Abramoff took them on as clients....or had established relationships with the clients and got monies outside of Abramoff's direction. Tsk tsk.
Those that gave the monies back (just like the few GOPers who had monies given to them by Abramoff clients but not directed or specified by Abramoff) did so to avoid any appearance of impropriety. Dorgan's relationship with the tribe was established years before Abramoff came on the scene. A few minutes of research would have told you that.
McConnell: I'm not saying that there isn't corruption in both parties. Certainly there is. But the Abramoff scandal is a systemic problem with the Republican Party apparatus....and there's alone.
Carla, oh really?
Then, the DNC should be a little more careful in its PR. It is certainly not making your distinction when they accuse Republicans of taint. Just read the DNC Press Releases:
http://news.google.com/news?
hl=e...ramoff+newswire
You will notice heavy use of the words "Abramoff" and "affiliated."
Simply unbelievable. The response to "dems do it to" is "no they don't"? Hilarious.
Commenting by HaloScan
