Getting it right
Posted by Greg on February 9, 2006
The wingnuts continue to parrot the talking points that the GOP culture of corruption is really a bipartisan scandal. Setting aside for a moment the reality that when a Republican talks about bipartisanship he wants you to be bi while he’s partisan, that’s simply not the case.
A good examples is brought out by Josh Marshall at TPM.
The AP reports of meetings between Reid’s office and Abramoff’s representatives. What’s amusing is what isn’t reported on. Did Reid change his positions to ones more favorable to Abramoff’s clients? Not only didn’t he change his positions, he was co-sponsor of the bills they were opposing.
Don’t let that little fact get slipped from the talking points you’ll hear. Of course lobbyists are going to meet with people opposing their clients – that’s what lobbyists do. The question is whether you see politicians indefensibly changing their positions in response to junkets, to donations, and other pressures. In Reid’s case, you clearly don’t.
But hey, in the interest of being balanced the AP couldn’t be bothered to report on something as inconvenient (to the GOP) as the truth.
Scott Shields has a good point:
For a variety of reasons, some of which I still don’t get, the old fashioned media wants very badly for this to be a bipartisan scandal. This is only the latest attempt to make it so. But by leaving out such key information as the fact that Reid never supported the Republicans on the Marianas, the whole story is called into question.
