Abramoff vs. Indian Country

Republicans (and their trained monkeys in the media and blogosphere) have been furiously trying to spin Abramoff-gate as a "bi-partisan" scandal, repeating over and over and over again the flat-out falsehood that he gave money to Democrats, too. The meat of this spin has been the fact that some of the tribes Abramoff's firm represented gave money to Democrats, apparently an attempt to insinuate that all money from Indian Country is somehow tainted. Now, an extensive analysis of campaign donations by The American Prospect shows that Abramoff's tribal clients actually REVERSED their historic pattern of donating to Democrats and started giving more money to Republicans once his firm was hired. Now this is not, repeat NOT, to suggest that all tribal leaders are completely blameless. If nothing else, some of them have at the very least been too free with their tribe's money, too secretive in their dealings with lobbyists, and duplicitous about it, on top of that. But we shouldn't let this excuse Right Wing attempts to smear all Native Americans in a desperate attempt to cover their own asses.