Reid and Abramoff

The AP is reporting that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid had more involvement with Abramoff’s lobbying firm and clients than previously disclosed.

Here’s what I think about this story: I suspect that its impetus was the RNC or some other arm of the GOP, in a continuing effort to construe this story as a bipartisan scandal. I also suspect that even most Americans who have a sense of that aren’t going to appreciate the distinction that “Senator Reid never met Jack Abramoff and never has taken contributions from him… Abramoff is a convicted felon and no one has suggested the other partners we might have dealt with have done anything impermissible.”

All of the stuff outlined in the article may, in fact, be “just a typical part of lawful fundraising,” but that doesn’t mean that it appears ethical to most Americans who have no idea how bought and sold our elected representatives actually are. (Nor does it mean that it is ethical.)

Frankly, I’m not impressed by “technically legal” and “technically not a bipartisan scandal.” And I know that goes against the party line, but I don’t really care. If the reporting in this story is accurate, which Reid’s office doesn’t seem to dispute, then what the Dems are accusing the GOP of doing and what the Dems did themselves is nothing but a distinction without a difference.

We can do infinitesimally better doesn’t have much of a ring to it.

And, yes, I realize that one Dem vs. lots of Repubs does not an equal problem make. And, no, I’m not trying to start a circular firing squad just for shits and giggles. Of course I’d like the Dems to win elections, but not if it means wriggling away from pointed fingers on dubious distinctions that, in the end, don’t really mean much at all, only so they can continue to succumb to the stranglehold of lobbyists corrupting the whole system.

This isn't me complaining; it's me hoping for more.

UPDATE: For a different opinion than mine, see Scott at MyDD. I absolutely understand the points he makes, and yet I still don't feel that the particular exception he notes makes a world of difference. I don't know. The whole situation feels a bit to me like saying a blow job isn't cheating, but wev. What do I know?