Redstate

the tribal chair is smiling and if you look really close it appears as though Abramoff is smiling as well.  So...like...Bush might as well...ya know...be shaking...umm...Abramoff's hand.

Actually looks like Bush is in the throes of his trademark humor...look at the fat guy's belly and ask "Is this the buffet line?"  Hawhawhawhaw.

...friends at Kos are going to go through some serious HateBushus Interruptus.

You overestimate them.  Or would that be underestimate?  Oh hell with it all.

This does not look right. That doesn't look like Abramoff, seriously. Anyone have some of that super cool expensive software where you can compare faces of people to see if its genuine? Like somehow it picks up certain points on peoples face and see if it matches up. We need to check this one. That doesn't look like Abramoff. I want a closer photo.

you left out the "w" in "Bahahaha"

The correct spelling is

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahah!

After you read more into the story behind this picture you'll realize that no one is coming forward on saying who invited Abramoff.  

Secondly, the guy who produced this photo ALSO was shaking Bush's hand and laughing.

So two perspectives:

1. Gaza is supporting Bush by smearing the idea that Bush had ties to Abramoff by making us think this is the most that anyone can come up with Bush/Abramoff ties.
   
2. Gaza is betraying Bush (a man he is laughing with here and showing he some sort of relationship with) and thus trying to create the atmosphere that Bush does indeed have ties to Abramoff.

What makes more sense to you?

Bush as in a room. Abramoff was in the same room.

If you feel compelled to draw more detailed conclusions, perhaps your tin foil hat is on a bit too tight.

Hey, I know! Let's find out what  the local indymedia site wants us to think! They've got great tin foil over there!

Digital photographs closer to Jesse Jackson than Abramoff is to Bush in that picture.  In official settings, too!  That I was personally involved in setting up!  Does that mean that Jesse Jackson is swayed by my influence?

One interesting thing that everyone needs to realize about digital media and Cameras Everywhere™ is that if you're in any way a public figure, nothing you ever do is going to go away.

I won't talk about my father's "LifeLocket" idea from my childhood, that's too interesting to contemplate...  

It's impeachment time baby.  Maybe even a treason prosecution.

lol....

In all honesty I believe alot of people "without tinfoil hats" would come to the same conclusion.  

I completely agree...

Gaza probably is a smart man.  He knows that a photo like this, unless special circumstances surrounds it, would just make any investigator laugh at it as solid evidence.  It'd be circumstantial at best.

So why did he release the photo when anyone with any intelligence knows that it'd be played that way?

The first lamest attempt would go something to the effect that Bush and Abramoff ate at the same restaurant once AND there is photographic proof that they drank from the same GLASS.  The same Glass!  Blows your mind, don't it?  Wow, Bush sure is guilty.  And I bet that Abramoff and Karl Rove once rode in the SAME taxi.  It's a regular conspiracy.

Reid/Abramoff connections....

Read all the reports on this carefully.  ATM its nothing more than circumstantial, at best, like this photo.  Yet many people here are having an orgasm over a bias news article. =/

That it won't.  He's hoping that it'll prod whoever else is holding on to photos that show Bush and Abramoff in the same 100 mile radius will go ahead and do so.  

It's especially key for Democrats to continue to play up the scandal taint...the WaPo a few days ago was running a story about Boehner renting an apartment from a lobbyist to prime the pump.  

In my theory of the Democrats' campaign hopes for 2006, one of the most important phrases is "Culture of Corruption."  Any evidence they can unearth concerning said "culture" helps their cause -- especially if it doesn't come from a source close to the Administration, because then it can be averred that there was a "coverup" or a withholding of that information or those photographs.  So the dribble will continue as photojournalists around the country scan old Compact Flash media looking for Jacks in the Background.

Believe me, the LifeLocket story is much more interesting and more frightening.

jail cells and courtrooms

I'm a lawyer

oops

bad example!!!

but when the trials are over

I GO HOME

What's a "Lifelocket"? Some device you wear to provide 24/7 film coverage of everything you've done?

1. I have a computer
   
   
2. It is connected to the Internet
   
   
3. I contribute to RedState
   
   
4. I read the Weekly Standard from time to time
   
   
5. I read the MSM almost all the time
   
   
6. I notice connections between what the MSM is doing and what the Weekly Standard is doing from time to time
   
   
7. I have family from Silver Spring, Maryland
   
   
8. I've talked about how Abramoff was going to be a problem for Republicans
   
   
9. I've asked what to do about it
   
   
10. I've been contacted by Jack Abramoff
    
    
11. I've never appeared in a photograph with him.

If anything, blame Google, because Abramoff probably found my initial piece about the developing scandal through that search engine.  BTW, Jack, if you're listening, I've never been to Signatures.  It wasn't even there the last time I was in the Silver Spring area.

** Interesting factoid:  Matt Drudge graduated from Montgomery Blair high school in...you guessed it...Silver Spring.  Along with Goldie Hawn...

I mean even Rove is in the darn thing.  It's the Special Prosecutor Trifecta for Pete's sake!  More proof that the DoJ is a willing stooge for the Bush kleptocracy.

Just to verify I speak truth to power you too can do this experiment yourselves.  Simply draw a line from Rove's nose through Bush's heart and, ominously, it points towards Abramoff's wallet.  I kid you not.

Halliburton!!!11oneoneneone

Its only that bad 98% that gives the rest a bad name!

"It's especially key for Democrats to continue to play up the scandal taint...the WaPo a few days ago was running a story about Boehner renting an apartment from a lobbyist to prime the pump." - People's Cube

But Boehner, knowing that this is a lobbyist, should know that are tons more apartments that he could rent.  Why fuel the fire?

Furthermore, don't we all agree that lobbyist and our country's leaders should have no relationship with one another beyond open public conversations and sessions? Wouldn't that be in the best interest of the American people so they don't have to doubt and worry and have controversy over this?

The point is neither you or I know for sure if there is any scandal involving Boehner and that lobbyist.  And thats the problem.

I've seen Bush in photos with Democrats, but I haven't drawn any conclusions from them. Now if I see any photos of these two in a back alley I might suspect uno poco mas.

sort uv, I can say this.

Why bother?  The dude is in the far background of a photo obviously taken at a meet-and-greet session.  I have a picture of me taken with President Clinton at the same kind of meet-and-greet event.  Did I talk to Clinton?  No, except to say "nice to meet you, Mr. President."  Did he respond?  No.  He moved on to the next handshake.

Lame, really lame.

mean that Goldie Hawn is about to be dragged into this scandal? Come to think of it, I've spent quite a bit of time in Silver Spring Myself.

I used to live near there, and even dated some girls from UM!

That is embarrassing.

compared to Embattled Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid.

Was something my father talked about with me when he gave me, as a gift, his old Polaroid SX-70 Land camera to use for a week when I was eight years old.  I was astonished by that camera, not because it was a shiny object -- because of the technology that allowed it to produce a developed photograph almost instantly.  He then totally blew my mind with the concept that within my lifetime it would be possible to give as a gift to a child a locket on which they could record -- in color and sound -- the events of their entire life.

It's an idea that I think we're in striking distance of achieving, and it will have profound implications when combined with an ubiquitous high-speed packet-switched network and especially(!) increasing acceptance of omnipresent monitoring of public spaces and biometric technology.  One idea I thought of initially was:  "Why not have it monitor your insides, too?"

Isaac Asimov meets Jules Verne meets Ray Kurzweil meets Richard Feynman meets...well, you add to the list...

I haven't read it, but when things like this come, up this book is one I always hear mentioned.

When the LifeLocket becomes practical, I think very few people are going to worry much about Karenna Gore Schiff's Latest Book.  Everyone is going to want to see the video, but maybe a few old crinkly WaPo journalists will still be interested in her...

Clearly you don't get it. Abramoff and Bush were in the same room at the same time! This proves...well, it proves something. I'll let the libs figure out what cuz I have no idea.

Two weren't. One was incredible, but was spoiled in every possible meaning of the word.

I actually got out of full time trial law practice 4 years ago after 12 years of crime , med malp and divorce to do corp work and write. I do a few cases a year in court when associated on complex litigation.

That's a better set...the only noteworthy grads of my high school I can name are Courtney Cox and Natalee Holloway.

Than the question:

But Boehner, knowing that this is a lobbyist, should know that are tons more apartments that he could rent.  Why fuel the fire?

Because my honest take on it is that they don't care.  The politicans, that is.  They exist on a different plane than the people they serve and they are even, in their own minds, immune to the media coverage to a certain degree.

Look, one of Shadegg's biggest "triumphs" according to him was preveting the Schumer language protecting environmental groups from being included in the Bankruptcy bill while pro-life groups would have gone unprotected under that wording.

Think about that for an instant, and read his description:  in the last hour of the last minute of the last day, Shadegg decided to stand up for what was OBVIOUSLY something he and everyone in Congress should have done just by virtue of simple fairness:  no special interest group should get special treatment at the expense of another.  That's a simple principle, but Shadegg was too proud of standing up for it.  

Shadegg was better than most politicans in admitting how far, far away they are from actual constituents, from real people.  In small districts you might find people who are more sensitive to the concerns of their constituents, but I think in relation to Boehner, really...who cares?

The Democrats don't only want to achieve perfect equality of results, they also want to insure that nobody has any friends.  Boehner isn't wrong for renting an apartment from a lobbyist!  My GOD, the entire reason Washington exists is that so connected people can get together with each other.  Everyone you bump into in Georgetown, especaially when you know someone like the people I know in my family, are pretty well connected.  

The WaPo is frankly grasping at straws.  

Please, someone start listing the landlords of everyone who rents a condominium or apartment in DC.  Does the WaPo really want to go that far?  How crazy are they?

Mention one of the largest and most successful casinos in the United States, courtesy of Bill Clinton:

Mohegan Sun. For which everyone in MA/CT/NH/RI can be thankful, especially because:

The expansion is also having economic benefits for Connecticut. The State reported

a 24% rise in revenues from Mohegan Sun slot machines in 2002, adding another

$35 million to the state budget.

Always good, that.  No wonder Jack Abramoff was convinced nothing could possibly go wrong...

recently seen in the same room as Hillary.I wonder what that proves?

The "w" in the Bwahahahaha is a kind of "evil, I have you know" kind of laugh.  The Bahahahaha is shorthand for a more subtle, kind of a "I can't believe how fast that chick snubbed you while I was trying to keep my martini from going up my nose" style laugh.   The full word is pphtththphthbahahahahahahaha, usually followed by the sounds of a man desperately trying to catch his breath, or a sudden collapse to the floor. This is definitely a "I can't believe how badly you're burned, once again, you lame-o" kind of laugh.  This Abramoff photo may even deserve the full, arcane word.  

Maybe not so much the physical schitck part of it.  It's really too lame.

I graduated high school in the same class as the current president of CBS news. Does that make me complicit with the worst excesses of the MSM?

Oh, the shame of it!

This meeting, however, was a relatively small gathering attended by some two dozen people, including Garza and another Indian tribal leader who was Abramoff's client. At least two tribes, the Coushatta of Louisiana and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw, contributed $25,000 each to the anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Grover Norquist, a well-known conservative ally of the White House. Garza, who is also known by his Indian name,  Makateonenodua.com, meaning "black buffalo," is under federal indictment for allegedly embezzling more than $300,000 from his tribe.

Talking about the photo, Abramoff has told friends, "I was standing right next to the window and after the picture was taken, the President came over and shook hands with me, and we chatted and joked."

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1158908,00.html

Subtitle:

White House had initially said there was no record of disgraced lobbyist at 2001 meeting

Opening paragraph:

Just how close was the relationship between the White House and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff? The Bush Administration again faced questions about those ties after an e-mail Abramoff sent a journalist friend surfaced last week in which Abramoff wrote that he had met President Bush almost a dozen times over the past five years, and even received an invitation to the President's Crawford, Texas ranch along with other large political donors. Bush "has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met," Abramoff mused in the e-mail last month, adding that, He "saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids." The White House, however, has continued to assert that the President had no recollection of ever meeting Abramoff. When TIME reported in January that it had viewed unpublished photographs of Abramoff with Bush, aides responded that the pictures meant nothing since the President is photographed with thousands of supporters and White House visitors every year.

I guess being twice referred to as disgraced in the first two lines of a story does not preclude Abramoff from being prominently quoted as a primary source. How wonderful of Time to manufacture yet another uncritical dissemination point for Abramoff's...how did they term it?  Claims?  Oh, that's right, "musings".

Disgraceful.

More Bush-Abramoff photos, about as convincing as that one from Time:

http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2175

I love Scott.

A recent NY Times editorial reffered  to Newt Gingrich as disgraced but I know of a certain disbarred lawyer in a southwestern state who has never been laden with that designation.  Some people must be impervious to disgrace.

there's some kind of "connection" going on here.  Bush surely could clean this up by letting us all know, in a crystal-clear fashion, what the "connection" is rather than all of this squirmy talk.  It seems pretty unlikely that he wouldn't remember meeting Abramoff, especially as a major campaign contributor.  Just tell everyone what's going on so we can get on with business.

The media believes they can control our thinking.  They believe that just by emphasizing an item they give credence to it.

In essence, the media thinks that they when they say "jump" the American people will jump.

They think that if they say in hushed tones something like "President Bush ate Wheaties for breakfast this morning" that the American public will assume that Bush did something wrong.

We need to prove the media wrong and counter the media propaganda.

There is no way that anyone except with a bias can infer any connection between Bush and Abramoff.

Bush as President meets literally thousands upon thousands of people; it is entirely realistic that Bush would not remember meeting Abramoff.

I was at a campaign rally for Bush in 2004 and probably got as close as Abramoff did in this picture to the President; I don't expect him to have remembered me.

The photograph is the proof that both Bush and Abramoff are planning the takeover of this world!  roll eyes

Some two dozen. (What, perhaps 25? 30?) That's relatively small.

Why not just say "about two dozen?" Why characterize the meeting as "relatively small?"

Because "some two dozen" is not relatively small. That's what we call a "meet and greet" here in Washington. Or a delegation. Or a group.

To describe it as "relatively small" is an example of the writer trying to cast the meeting as more important than it was.

the divorce cases, did you ever have a fool for a client? LOL

I remember you talking about first and second wives. You could have been your own best customer. I've only been through it once...knock

on wood! :)

Where are those photos?

Good luck to you and yours. Im looking for #3.

number 2 with no current prospects.

They could well be trying to paint the White House into a corner. No doubt there are photos of Bush with Abramoff, just as there are with Bush and thousands of Americans.

I'm cynical about the MSM thinking here and feel we need to be careful:

- White House says no record of Abramoff at such and such meeting?

--- OK let's release the one that shows him in the room.

What's next?

- White House says doesn't have any record of Bush at any other session with Abramoff?

--- OK Let's release this other one that shows them in the same room at some other event.

- White House acknowledges at same session but denies meeting Abramoff?

--- OK Let's release this one of them shaking hands that we've been holding.

Like you said, the WH needs to come clean and let the chips fall where they may or else this will be a death by a thousand cuts.

is that, according to the article, that the White House has claims it has no record of Abramoff being present at that meeting - when, quite obviously, he was.

The White House keeps claiming 'no record, no relationship' when there obviously is. Begs the question as to why they're stonewalling.

This may not go away as quickly as we'd like.

Abramoff keeps insisting he was close to Bush, and others (Eisler) seem to agree.

Then there's the Reflections photography thing...http://www.reflectionsorders.com/w04/

It seems that company scrubbed their web-site of all photos showing Bush and Abramoff together.  But somebody made a screen-capture before the scrub was complete.  It's here:

http://server3.pictiger.com/img/161731/picture-hosting/colage-2.php

So far, they haven't hit the MSM...yet.

You're both being ridiculous. Of course the President doesn't remember him! Do you know how many people the President meets every day? There's even pictures of the Pres with Teddy Kennedy but I won't hold that against him.

Bush-Lay letters please.