{"id":7884,"date":"2006-07-08T10:43:36","date_gmt":"2006-07-08T14:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/7884.html"},"modified":"2006-07-08T10:43:36","modified_gmt":"2006-07-08T14:43:36","slug":"abramoff-the-bush-white-house-and-the-things-we-learn-on-friday-afternoons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/abramoff-the-bush-white-house-and-the-things-we-learn-on-friday-afternoons\/","title":{"rendered":"Abramoff, the Bush White House, and the things we learn on Friday afternoons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Way back on Jan. 4, Scott McClellan promised reporters a “thorough report<\/a>” on Jack Abramoff’s [tag]White House[\/tag] contacts “very soon.” That, of course, never happened, but we’ve slowly begun to learn about the access the disgraced lobbyist had to the White House anyway.<\/p>\n

In May, the [tag]Secret Service[\/tag] released logs showing just two [tag]Abramoff[\/tag] visits to the White House. The disclosure was best described as “a joke<\/a>,” which failed to reflect Abramoff meetings that were already in the public record. Asked to explain why the records were woefully incomplete, a White House spokesperson said she could “offer no explanation<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Yesterday, we learned a little bit more. There are two elements to consider: 1) the more complete picture<\/a> of Abramoff’s generous access to the Bush gang; and 2) when the news was released.<\/p>\n

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff had a half-dozen White House appointments in the early months of the Bush administration, according to logs released yesterday by the U.S. Secret Service.<\/p>\n

The appointments included a meeting with a domestic policy aide to Vice President Cheney and a meeting in the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives attended by about 40 people. The logs also reflect that Abramoff attended one or more social events, as well as a gathering of Indian tribal officials and state legislators at which President Bush appeared. […]<\/p>\n

The new data, combined with the two visits disclosed in May, show that Abramoff had appointments to attend White House events or meetings on seven occasions — six in 2001 and a seventh in January 2004, on Inauguration Day. The Secret Service said the data reflect appointments but “do not necessarily reflect actual visits to the White House complex.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It hardly comes as a surprise that an admitted felon<\/a> had more appointments with the Bush White House than the Bush gang was willing to let on. It comes as even less of a surprise that the news was released late on a Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

It is, after all, the Friday-Night Presidency.
\n
\n* In 2004, [tag]Bush[\/tag] released documents relating to his National Guard service (or lack thereof) five times<\/a>. In each instance, he waited until late on a Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

* When the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation<\/a> into the Valerie Plame scandal, the announcement came late on a Friday night.<\/p>\n

* When Bush circumvented the Senate<\/a> to appoint Bill Pryor and Charles Pickering to the federal bench, he waited for late-Friday afternoons.<\/p>\n

* Bush agreed to testify before the 9\/11 Commission, so long as Dick Cheney would be there by his side. He announced his intentions<\/a> on a late-Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

* When Bush’s Commerce Department announced that household incomes had declined for three years in a row and 1.7 million people had fallen into poverty, they released the data<\/a> on a late-Friday afternoon. (It was the first time any administration had released the annual data on a Friday.)<\/p>\n

* Many suspected that the Bush administration would eliminate requirements on the nation’s dirtiest coal-fired power plants and refineries to make anti-pollution improvements as they upgrade facilities, but when the announcement finally came<\/a>, it was released on a late-Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

* When the administration said it wanted to remove Clean Water Act protections from up to one-fifth of the nation’s streams, ponds, lakes, mudflats, and wetlands, it said so<\/a> late on a Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

* Bush fired<\/a> Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, and Army Secretary (and former Enron executive) Thomas White on late-Friday afternoons.<\/p>\n

* When John Ashcroft’s Justice Department had to tell administration officials to preserve papers related to Enron, they waited to issue the directive<\/a> until late on a Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

* The White House announced its opposition<\/a> to an investigation into Karl Rove’s work with companies in which he held stock on a late-Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

* The Pentagon waited until shortly after the network news broadcasts had ended on a Friday afternoon to announce the results<\/a> of its investigation into the mishandling of the Quran at Guantanamo Bay.<\/p>\n

* Rumsfeld announced his intention to hide<\/a> unseen Abu Ghraib photos on a Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The Late-Friday-Media Trick has been around since before Bush took office, but no one has ever abused this practice like these guys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Way back on Jan. 4, Scott McClellan promised reporters a “thorough report” on Jack Abramoff’s [tag]White House[\/tag] contacts “very soon.” That, of course, never happened, but we’ve slowly begun to learn about the access the disgraced lobbyist had to the White House anyway. In May, the [tag]Secret Service[\/tag] released logs showing just two [tag]Abramoff[\/tag] visits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}