Another thought about the Abramoff matter.
Clearly, in less than a decade, Jack Abramoff was able to amass a vast sum of money. Given the nature of the enterprise, it’s not clear that we know the full amount even today. But certainly it ran into many tens of millions of dollars.
But pay attention to the big picture rather than just his personal enrichment or particular bad acts.
This is a huge sum of money Abramoff was sitting on. There was lots of money to keep Grover Norquist rolling in cash, lots of spare cash to fund Ralph Reed’s transition from Christian Coalition sachem to power lobbyist, money for skyboxes to use to raise more money without the in-kind donation of the use of the skybox, millions of dollars pushed through front organizations then passed on to others.
This isn’t just a crooked lobbyist. This is someone managing a slush-fund. The sort of unregulated, unwatched pile of money patronage-based political machines always need to keep running.
So who is he running it for?
