Dana Milbank: One Committee's Three Hours of Inquiry, in Surreal Time

[Robbien]

Yesterday's Senate hearing into superlobbyist Jack Abramoff's alleged defrauding of Indian tribes had something for everyone. There was the yoga instructor who took the Fifth. There was the lifeguard selected to run a think tank from a beach house at Rehoboth. And there was Exhibit 31, an e-mail from Abramoff to a rabbi friend.

"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?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/22/AR2005062202100.html

[punpirate]

1. Milbank must have some snippiness left over...

... from last week: "Dorgan and John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, quizzed witnesses on what the lawmakers described as an elaborate web of fraud and greed -- 'even by Washington standards,' as Dorgan unkindly put it."

Milbank must not believe he's sitting in the middle of a cesspool. Between Bush and his hanger-on jackals, this is perhaps the most corrupt administration in the history of the country, and Milbank's whining about a Dem senator's characterization of it as just that.

This boy really needs to take a pill or something.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

2. Is Milbank, like, the "Mr. Blackwell" of political "reporting"?

Mr. Blackwell being the guy who does the annual worst dressed list?

Seems to mainly focus on catty snide comments about people more than any interest in the substance of what's going on...

It's like I'm hearing that snide Mr. Blackwell/Paul Lynde voice being channeled when I read this crap.