The other day, in his best New York Times column ever, David Brooks chastised Republicans for their ethical lapses, noting the seriousness and widespread duplicity tied to the Jack Abramoff scandal. In passing, Brooks mentioned that even James Dobson, a self-proclaimed paragon of virtue, was implicated.
“Only a giant like Abramoff would have the guts to use one tribe’s casino money to finance a Focus on the Family crusade against gambling in order to shut down a rival tribe’s casino.”
Brooks fudged this a bit. Ralph Reed, who was heavily involved with Abramoff’s fraudulent lobbying efforts, reached out to Dobson’s Focus on the Family for assistance in the lobbying effort against a casino, though Dobson apparently didn’t realize it was to help benefit a different casino or that Reed was getting paid by gambling interests. Dobson’s efforts, therefore, weren’t “financed” by Abramoff’s clients, as Brooks said.
What’s interesting, though, is how seriously Focus on the Family is taking Brooks’ error. The group not only sent a letter to the editor to the NYT about the column, Focus sent my blog a copy of the letter, apparently because I published a post about Reed’s outreach to Dobson.
Focus VP Tom Minnery’s letter reads as follows:
David Brooks asserts (“Masters of Sleaze,” March 22) that Focus on the Family accepted gambling money from lobbyist Jack Abramoff to fight a competitive casino. Sorry. Untrue. We don’t know Mr. Abramoff and haven’t taken a dime from him. Had Mr. Brooks asked we would have told him. But then that would be journalism, wouldn’t it.
Focus opposes gambling — in any guise, in any community. In the last five years, we have worked on this in more than 30 states. Dr. Dobson’s service on the National Gambling Impact Study Commission brought home the devastation gambling leaves in its wake.
Several times Dr. Dobson has blistered politicians of both parties — by name — for their egregious acceptance of gambling money. Mr. Brooks could have discovered this with a little research. He chose instead to engage in the journalistic equivalent of a drive-by shooting.
OK, Tom, tell us how you really feel.
Regardless, the fact that Focus is distributing its letter so broadly shows how concerned Dobson must be about this. I didn’t even mention or link to Brooks’ column, but they sent me the explanation about why the column was wrong anyway.
To be fair, while Dobson’s faults are too numerous to list here, he’s always been consistent about gambling, and Focus’ role in the Abramoff affair was Reed’s fault, not the group’s.
If Dobson is this livid about Brooks’ column, which only mentioned Focus briefly, I can only imagine what he’s planning to do to Ralph Reed, who actually conned him into playing a part in this fiasco.