WaPo: Two Strikes

The battle for control of the Washington Post's soul rages on...

As if today's editorial calling for the confirmation of Samuel Alito were not bad enough, the WaPo ombudsman has also claimed (falsely citing two WaPo articles) that Democrats received contributions from Abramoff.

Josh Marshall (now the de-fact Web expert on this matter) explains the potential for confusion:

To the best of my knowledge Abramoff never contributed any money to Democrats. And that's hardly surprisingly. Abramoff is a life-long professional Republican. How much money do you figure James Carville has contributed to Republicans over the last two decades. Or Paul Begala? It's almost a silly question.

When you hear about Republicans and Democrats getting 'Abramoff money' what's being talked about aren't personal contributions from Abramoff but contributions from entities he worked for as a lobbyist. So, for instance, Abramoff lobbies for Indian tribe X. Indian tribe X contributes to politician Y. Hence, politician Y got 'Abramoff money'...

More generally, I think you'll see over the course of the next year that these federal 'hard' money contributions -- either from Abramoff or his clients -- aren't where the real game was being played. The real action was in money funnelled or laundered through various DC-based non-profits or de facto cash payments to members of Congress or their staffs.