Archives for Thursday, 6/23/05

Both the Washington Post and the Seattle P-I report today on the continuing saga of two of Tom DeLay’s croniest cronies with Northwest connections: former Preston Gates & Ellis uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and his good buddy, Mercer Island rabbi and vanity talk-radio host, Daniel Lapin. At a Senate hearing yesterday on allegations that Abramoff defrauded Indian Tribes of tens of millions of dollars — some of it funneled through groups connected to DeLay, Ralph Reed and other prominent right-wingers — an e-mail exchange was introduced in which Abramoff asked the good rabbi to phony up some fake awards to help him gain membership at a ritzy D.C. club.

“I hate to ask you for your help with something so silly but I’ve been nominated for membership in the Cosmos Club, which is a very distinguished club in Washington, DC, comprised of Nobel Prize winners, etc.,” Abramoff wrote. “Problem for me is that most prospective members have received awards and I have received none. I was wondering if you thought it possible that I could put that I have received an award from Toward Tradition with a sufficiently academic title, perhaps something like Scholar of Talmudic Studies?”

There were titters in the audience as Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) read aloud the e-mail, then outright laughter as he continued reading: “Indeed, it would be even better if it were possible that I received these in years past, if you know what I mean.”

The rabbi, conservative radio host Daniel Lapin, gave his blessing. “I just need to know what needs to be produced,” he wrote. “Letters? Plaques?”

“The point of all of this,” Dorgan said, “is there’s a lot of deception going on.”

No shit, Sherlock.

Rabbi Lapin’s history of deceit, self-aggrandizement and profiteering is so extensive, he’s even earned his own category over on blatherWatch. It was Lapin who first introduced Abramoff to DeLay, and it was Abramoff who helped Lapin establish his very profitable, theo-con not-for-profit organization, Toward Tradition. Their mutual back-scratching has helped make both men wealthy and politically connected, so really… what’s a fake award or two between friends?

Don’t be confused by the title “Rabbi” before Lapin’s name; it doesn’t automatically make a man moral or wise. Lapin is above all, a self-serving, well-connected, right-wing operative with his fingers in local politics as well as national. He even played a role in drumming up false outrage over last November’s gubernatorial election, using his radio show as a forum for promoting the NW blogosphere’s most famous conspiracy theorist, and even joining Stefan as a featured speaker at January’s ridiculous, Ukrainian-themed “Re-Vote” rally, where he inflamed a crowd already fired up on lies about disenfranchised military voters, by paraphrasing John Merrick: “We are not animals! We are humans touched by the finger of GOD!!”

Oh puh-lease.

Rabbi Lapin shows off “the finger of God.” [photo courtesy (un)Sound Politics]

Our good friend Stefan’s man-crush on Lapin borders on sycophancy (a quick search of (u)SP finds a dozen posts since the beginning of the year mentioning the good Rabbi.) Indeed, not only does Lapin’s angry mix of angry zionism and angry free market determinism appear to drive Stefan’s angry worldview, Lapin has literally driven Stefan himself… chauffeuring “Aluminum Hat Boy” to the Re-Vote rally. (The Rabbi is not only a shrewd political operative who has made himself rich playing the role of the Jewish shill for the Christian far-right, but according to Stefan, he’s also an “excellent driver.”)

That Rabbi Lapin should be assumed to have any moral authority is a joke, given his record of lies, deceit and political machinations. If his career is not actually destroyed by the Abramoff scandal, whatever is left of his credibility should be.

One of the big political issues in Washington state for 2006 will surely be an Oregon style “takings” initiative, that requires state and local governments to compensate property owners for potential value lost due to land-use restrictions. On a somewhat related topic, today a divided US Supreme Court broadly reaffirmed the Fifth Amendment power of eminent domain.

In a closely watched decision the court ruled 5-4 that local governments have the right to seize private property for private development in the interest of the common good. The court said that local officials, not federal judges, are best capable of determining whether a development project benefits the community.

“The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including

Share:

• Tweet
• Email
• Print

An editorial in yesterday’s Olympian discusses a proposal to elevate multiple drunk driving convictions from a gross misdemeanor to a class C felony. HB 1451, introduced by Rep. John Ahern (R-Spokane), would make a third such conviction punishable by as much as 17 months in jail; under current law the maximum penalty is a $1000 fine and 90 days.

213 peopled died as a result of drunk driving accidents in 2004. That this was the lowest number of such fatalities since 1961 does not lessen the tragedy.

But while I’m certainly not going to argue against getting repeat drunk driving offenders off the roads, I was struck by the cost of the Ahern proposal:

Locking DUI defendants up in prison is a costly proposition. According to officials with the National Highway Traffic Safety Commission, approximately one-third of those people arrested for DUI are repeat offenders. Putting three-time offenders behind bars for up to 17 months would force the state of Washington to build another 1,000-bed prison. That would cost about $225 million over a two-year budget cycle.

And that figure doesn’t include the $60-plus million per biennium to house the extra prisoners.

That’s more than $350 million of state expenditures over the next 6 years — all to lock up a thousand or so drunk drivers — and I can’t help but wonder if maybe the problem couldn’t be addressed at less financial and personal expense? That’s not the bleeding heart liberal in me talking, it’s the calculating utilitarian. Certainly there are incorrigible drunks who will never stop drinking and driving, and they need to be locked up to protect the public. But there are others who might be stopped if proper resources were made available for treatment, education and technology. For example, repeat offenders could be required to have their cars installed with devices that require the driver to pass a breathalyzer before engaging the ignition. Such technology is expensive… but a helluva lot cheaper than incarceration.

So while I agree with the Olympian that the bill deserves “additional consideration and refinement,” I hope that lawmakers make a proper cost-benefit analysis, and consider all the options, before passing expensive legislation on what is undoubtedly a very emotional issue. It may be that a little prevention is more effective and less costly than the cure.