WSJ: Abramoff entertained reporters along with lawmakers

Birds of a feather

In the otherwise comprehensive Washington Post coverage of the corruption scandal centered around lobbyist "Casino" Jack Abramoff, one little detail didn't make it that does get dropped into an article in Friday's Wall Street Journal (subs. req'd):

Mr. Abramoff was considered the king of the skybox, entertaining lawmakers, staffers and reporters, including this reporter a few years ago when he worked at another news organization. Mr. Abramoff, who is negotiating a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, spent more than $1 million a year on luxury boxes at the MCI Center, Baltimore's Camden Yards and a pair of luxury suites at FedEx Field for Redskins games. Mr. Abramoff also had a pair of floor seats for Wizards games and rinkside seats for Caps games.

While it's nice of the WSJ reporter to out himself as a recipient of largesse, what other reporters also had snouts in the trough?

via Atrios
http://bestofbothworlds.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_bestofbothworlds_archive.html#113591882286239921

I NEED A CIGARETTE. Reporters marrying politicos. Reporters being swooned by lobbyists. I need to start a newspaper.

SMOKE BREAK...sorry for the ranting. Its irritating me today...

:nuke: :beer: :smoke:

Who are the reporters who were courted by Jack Abramoff? We the people deserve to know who is bought in the media.

the Blogosphere. Cokie Roberts and her husband...Andrea Mitchell and Greenspan, Howie Kurtz and his Repug PR Firm Wife, Chris Matthews and his wife who works for DC TV Station....on and on.

They have very "cozy" relationships and now we know that they are complicit in the mess we have in America today.

That's why years ago corporations used to have strict "Nepotism" rules. Most of those have been done away with.

The country is now run by what could be seen as a "Mafia type" operation. It's one big happy family of influence and favors with everyone profiting as they bring down our Constitution.

It's really sickening. But, I wonder how many average Americans out there know or are even interested if they find out. :-(

It's up to us "The Outraged" to keep after this. If we don't who will?

This is the bigger, ongoing threat of the media and the larger corporate world it is the mouthpiece for: that although they will criticize politicians, unions, school systems, and everybody else--every now and then even turning a token spotlight on a Republican; gently, for a few seconds, just to seem "objective"--they will never, never, allow anyone any access to the corporate world and how it works now. They always censor their own crimes, always censor their own part of things. You hear them "cover" the issue of campaign finance reform, and how politicians are supposedly "prostitutes" for all the huge amounts of money they need to raise for their campaigns, yet they never, never complete the picture and tell you the obvious--Who is causing the whole problem; who do they give all the money to? The corporate media, for ads! They have to fight off lie-campaigns, keeps their names prominent along with all the others who are advertising--it is a profit-making corporate media selling time, that is causing the whole problem, a corporate media that, by the way, fights tooth-and-nail to kill campaign finance reform that would make political campaigns publically financed, and take the profit out of it.

There are all kinds of interlocking relationships--corporate and familial--between these rich people, all censored, (as mentioned), and they never do exposes on any corporation anymore. I even remember years ago, when they were all persecuting the Clintons over the phony "Whitewater" story, which was not a crime but was bizarrely pretended to be by all of them, and Phil Donahue recalled being approached by the same group to invest there, and did not, and that it was not "criminal," just a bad investment, and then Mike Wallace (one of the few remaining honest ones) and "60 Minutes" actually did a story on Wallace's, it turns out, illegal, "Whitewater"-like Jamaican investment scam, which Wallace did not realize was illegal until later, and then got out of the deal--and CBS censored the story and it never aired! Why? Because it is THEM, the privileged, secret corporate cabal, and because it would have proved the Clintons did not know about the alleged shadiness of their own land-deal.

You will always hear and read about the politicians who are involved in supposed crimes and shady deals--but never, never, about the criminal "reporters" standing right there along with them, grabbing at the cash. Does this partly explain the horrific transformation of "Tricky Bob" Woodward, the Republican operative?

What the hell happened to a free and independent press? The majority of them appear to be whoring themselves out to the power brokers. With all the importance we place on the concept of a free press in this nation its disgraceful how its own members making a mockery of it.