It's not the lobbyists stupid!

The other day we quoted Newt Gingrich on the Abramoff scandal:

"You can't have a corrupt lobbyist without a corrupt member (of Congress) or a corrupt staffer at the other end. This is a team effort."

Well over at TMPCafe Mark Schmitt almost sounds like he's channeling Newt.

This is not a lobbying scandal. It's a betrayal-of-public-trust scandal. Lobbyists have no power, no influence, until a public servant gives them power. That's what DeLay and the K Street Project was all about. What they did was to set up a system by which lobbyists who proved their loyalty in various ways, such as taking DeLay and Ney on golf trips to Scotland, could be transformed from supplicants to full partners in government.

Abramoff did lots of terrible things and should go to jail, but never forget that every single criminal and unethical act of his was made possible by a public official. On his own, Abramoff had no power. At another time -- say, 1993 -- he would have been a joke.

That's right, while Abramoff may be a crook he was enabled by corrupt elected officials. And have no doubt that it was Republican elected officials only because it was the Republicans who held all the power. When the Democrats were in power they were guilty of similar crimes against the people who elected them. So Mark Schmitt is right when he says:

Please, Don't Say "Lobbying Reform"

It's not the lobbyists who need reforming, it's the elected officials who make their sleaze possible.