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 Betraying the Reagan RevolutionPosted on Jan 10, 2006Oh what a tangled web these no-longer-young Republicans weave when first they practice to deceive! The plumb line that runs down through the cesspool of the festering Abramoff-DeLay scandal is the conceit that the scions of the Reagan Revolution, a generation of young Republican activists summoned by God and party, were morally superior creatures who had only pure ideological motives for cutting the country’s social safety nets in the name of “small government.” More than two decades before he pleaded guilty to felonies in two jurisdictions, Jack Abramoff was the hard-nosed chairman of the College Republicans, and his lieutenants were Harvard graduate Grover Norquist, who rose to political power as president of the American Taxpayers Association, and a young Georgia student named Ralph Reed, who would later become the face of the Christian Coalition. “Today, our party readies itself to mount the wave of the future,” Abramoff sermonized as a 25-year-old at the Republican National Convention in 1984, as reported in Mother Jones magazine. “Will we ride that wave to glory, or will it send us crashing ashore? If we’re the party of tax cuts, and not the party of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts,’ then we’re riding our wave.... If we try to outspend big fat Tip O’Neill, or rush to Geneva to cut a deal, we’ll crash ashore.” Now, however, Abramoff has crashed and he threatens to take down Tom DeLay, who announced last week he will not attempt to regain his GOP leadership post in the House, even as he continues to fight his own indictment in Texas, which an all-Republican appeals court has just refused to dismiss. Meanwhile, two others who came up through the ranks of Republican youthful activism, Edwin A. Buckham and Brent Wilkes, can now be added to the web—growing with each new indictment and investigative news article—of DeLay-affiliated lobbyists, politicians and public officials who employed or benefited from a series of what appear to be front groups, slush funds and political money-laundering operations. Wilkes is up to his eyeballs in the case of disgraced Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-San Diego), who pleaded guilty in December to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors trying to sell stuff to the Pentagon. Wilkes, in turn, was a client of Buckham, a key figure at the center of an influence-peddling investigation into his work at the phony front organization, the U.S. Family Network, that serviced Abramoff’s clients. On Monday, Buckham announced that due to recent bad publicity, his prominent Alexander Strategy Group (ASG) lobbying firm was shutting down. It was ASG that paid DeLay’s wife at least $115,000 in consulting fees while selling the company’s widely proclaimed access to her super-powerful husband. The lobby firm also provided office space to “Americans for a Republican Majority,” DeLay’s fundraising organization. No surprise, then, that when Wilkes wanted to gain influence in Congress in support of his quest to get the Pentagon to invest in products he was selling—but for which the Pentagon’s inspector general found no real demand—he turned to ASG, paying at least $630,000 for the firm’s services. President Bush, as he did with Enron and its politically well-connected execs, is reportedly looking to distance himself from these big-time GOP players going down like a house of cards in a Category 5 hurricane. And, as with Enron, whose company chief Kenneth “Kenny Boy” Lay was tight with Bush and was a key financial supporter of his campaigns, such protests will ring hollow to those paying attention because of the perpetrators’ prominent work on the president’s campaigns, transition teams, fundraising and even in his administration. Abramoff was a “patron” fundraiser for the Bush 2004 campaign and served on the Department of the Interior transition team, while Wilkes was Bush’s California campaign finance co-chair. The scope of the scandal swirling around DeLay was perhaps best described by former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey, now a lobbyist: “Tom DeLay sent Buckham downtown to set up shop and start a branch office on K Street,” Armey told The New York Times, referring to the row of lobby firms famously headquartered there. “The whole idea was: ‘What’s in it for us?’ “ Sounds accurate enough. But Armey’s candid comment raises the question of why he and others in the Republican establishment didn’t blow the whistle on this operation before the indictments came down. After all, bilking the Pentagon for millions, bribing officials and breaking campaign-finance laws is hardly small potatoes. What irony that those once young Republicans, who hectored their elders about being more vigilant in defending the nation’s taxpayers and security forces, should now end up accused of deeply betraying both. See Related: Previous item: Exit Howard Stern, Enter Possibility Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. Add Your Comment
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Republican Economic Theories Don’t Add Up
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By CLARENCE SWINNEY, October 14, 2007 at 1:38 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
WHO WILL TELL THE PEOPLE?
YOU ARE A REPUGLINUT IF YOU CLAIM TO BE NUMBER ONE AS
#1-in Debt Creation equivalent of 600 years worth in only 12 years.
#1-In Deficit Creation-
#1-In lowest GDP growth over a 12 year period since WWII.
#1-In number of times (256) a President and Admiral stated under oath I do not remember
#1-In Bank Failures-with a president smiling and saying no pain no gain.
#1-In Personal Bankruptcies- No pain no gain
#1-In Business Bankruptcies-No pain no gain
#1-In Farm Foreclosures-No pain no gain
#1-In Looting S&L;s - folks. I think we hit the jackpot
Come and get it the vaults are unguarded.
#1-In stagnating median incomes
#1-In 60% Tax Cut for Top 1%
#1-In having a President with Alzhimers during most of his eight years.-no pain no gain
#1-In having a Grade-B actor play a role As president
#1-In having a president who lied, over and over, about his wifes age
#1-In having a president who had a shotgun wedding
#1-In having president who lied about having a close-knit family.
#1-In having a president who made decisions from alignment of the stars-not God
#1-In having a president who spouted religious values yet never belonged to a church, rarely attended church services, and was never known, by his family, to pray.
#1-In having a president who called a lying, stealing, convicted criminal Lt. Colonel a HERO then a :LIAR
#1-In having a president who never once used the word ethics in referring to his administration employees.
#1-In having a president who l ost 241 marines from a bad decision. Rambo talk we will not cut and run yet ordered removal of troops only 3.5 months later.
#1-In having a president who claimed A GREAT VICTORY after whipping a small island with 88,000 inhabitants and 10,000 BB guns. We whipped the Vietnam Syndrome. America stands tall again I wants to puke.
#1-In pushing a disinformation program against a small nation to have an excuse to bomb it.
#1-In bombing a small nation and causing the loss of 270 civilians from a bombed plane.
#1-In shooting down a civilian airliner and killing 290.
#1-In having a 20% prime interest rate and smiling to say no pain no gain
#1-In having 12-16% home loan interest rates. No pain no gain
#1-In killing the home construction industry by allowing raids on S &L;s which were designed for home loans.
#1-In having 10.8% unemployment while saying no pain no gain.
#1-In averaging 175,000 jobs per month over 12 years compared to Carters 218,000 per month.
#1-In having a recession in one third of twelve years.
#1-In having every major scandal during 20ttth century.
Plenty More.
Report thisClarence Swinney
Burlington nc
clarenceswinney at bellsouth dot net
By c u n d gulag, January 15, 2006 at 4:30 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
What happened to my country?
Report thisHere’s an example:
Rick Sanctmonious may head a Senate Ethics Panel?
Rick, “Corruption going on here? I’m shocked! Shocked!!!”
“Here’s your take, Senator.”
“Thank you.”
It’s time, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish” that this Administration must be impeached and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We must do it before these fearful, hate-filled morons do even more damage (like nuke Iran).
If there is a God, may He, She, or It help us to take these people down and create a “more perfect Union.”
PS: Has anyone in the Republican Party ever even READ the Constitution?!?
By Ian Brewer, January 12, 2006 at 9:31 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
You assume that the current corruption scandals are a betrayal of the Regan legacy. I would refute that, they are instead an extension of that same legacy. The Republican ideology is nothing less than ideological window dressing for corruption and criminality. Why bother to try and appeal to the better instincts of followers of Reganism by telling them that they have been betrayed? They are only interested in the fortunes of economic elites and don’t really care what means are employed to achieve those ends.
Report thisBy Tomack, January 12, 2006 at 9:19 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Thank you Mr. Swinney, for your comment, and the Reagan administration tally. I had forgotten how impressive it was. An excellent example to set for all of us; collect facts now because it may be the last time they apear in print.
In the end, I wonder what the Bush tally will be.
Report thisBy Steven Domingos, January 11, 2006 at 4:26 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Once again, here is what I very much miss about Robert Scheer’s column no longer appearing in the L.A.Times: His is very good writing and excellent reporting.
Most important in my opision, his writing is a powerful form of expression capable of having an impact; in my opinion, capable of moving public sentament, perhaps ever so slightly on a national scale. But, who knows to what effect? A nebulous idea perhaps on my part, but whatever truth may be in it is now lost to this Country’s capacity for progressive reform to the degree that the L.A.Times has a national impact.
Report thisBy Sylvia Barksdale Morovitz, January 11, 2006 at 1:47 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
As usual, Robert has given us another in-depth look at the slime covered republicans who have put so many out of their homes and into nowhere land, in their quest to cut government spending.
Yeah, Reagan was the real biggie in the horrible mess that’s followed with each republican leader since him. No one has outdone Bush, Inc. with heartless, mindless deprivation of the middle and lower class tax payer in this country.
Sure, he’s attempting to distance himself from Abramoff but he can’t run fast enough nor can he hide. Neither can he do so with Cheney, DeLay or any of the other criminals in his administration for he is the biggest one of them all. He plans to run this country long after his tenure is up. His plan is to have Alito on the supreme court to complete his extreme right wing agenda which is the total, unquestionable power of dictatorship.
Frankly, I am sick of the entire governmental set-up in America now. Sure, democrats may take the house and senate in November but I fear it will be too late for war on Iran is definitely on the table. Bush, Inc. should be impeached NOW and ousted from our government. If we notice carefully enough, Tony Blair is now making the case for war on Iran, as Bush made it for war on Iraq. We must ask ourselves how they intend to win this war. If we’re smart, we know the answer. With their inability to consider the comsequences, both these men are capable of using the BIG bomb.
Please forgive me for straying off the intended subject but I can only reiterate, if Bush is not ousted, we are goners!
Report thisBy Paul Tracy, January 11, 2006 at 10:01 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Ronald Reagan himself betrayed the so-called “Reagan Revolution.” The way I see it is that ever since the Great Depression, government spending has been used to keep aggregate demand at sufficiently high levels to keep capitalism from stalling out. The issue is this: What will government spending go toward, either ordinary people’s needs or for the corporate rich? Republicans, especially, choose the latter.
The twist that Reagan brought into play was he chose to quit paying for government. Now, Republicans prefer borrowing the money from the rich and from the Japanese and Chinese governments (who want to maintain their export markets). Taxpayers then repay the money plus interest.
Report thisBy John Earl, January 11, 2006 at 9:56 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Readers of such progressive magazines asThe Nation and Mother Jones have been getting the low-down on the corrupt K-Street/GOP connections for years. The general media has not until recently shown much interest. I’m not holding my breath until all the guilty parties get what should be coming to them. This is the same bunch that has demonized the poor while living large on the spoils of their beltway dealings.
Report thisBy clarence swinney, January 11, 2006 at 8:13 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Robert, the Reagan Revolution devolved under Reagan.
Increased Spending by 80%--Debt by 187%--Deficits by 110% and a CONSERVATIVE!!
Plus increased California Spending by 112%.
245 investigated
137 charged or resigned under threat of indictment.
75 guilty of felony or misdemeanor(this is debatable-I had detailed list but repairman destroyed my hard drive years ago. I have recreated many but golf too much for me.
I let Joe Conason down for I promised him the list several years ago).
Too busy reading your terrific articles.
clarence swinney
Report thispolitical historian
burlington nc
cwswinney at netzero dot net