Displease a Lobbyist, Get Fired

LA Times:

For five years, Allen Stayman wondered who ordered his removal from a State Department job negotiating agreements with tiny Pacific island nations — even when his own bosses wanted him to stay.

Now he knows.

Newly disclosed e-mails suggest that the ax fell after intervention by one of the highest officials at the White House: Ken Mehlman, on behalf of one of the most influential lobbyists in town, Jack Abramoff.

The e-mails show that Abramoff, whose client list included the Northern Mariana Islands, had long opposed Stayman's work advocating labor changes in that U.S. commonwealth, and considered what his lobbying team called the "Stayman project" a high priority."

Mehlman said he would get him fired," an Abramoff associate wrote after meeting with Mehlman, who was then White House political director.

The exchange illustrates how, more than two years after the corruption scandal surrounding the now-disgraced Abramoff came to light, people are still learning the extent of the lobbyist's ability to pull the levers of power in Washington. The latest revelations provide more detail than the Bush administration has acknowledged about how Abramoff and his team reached into high levels of the White House, not just Capitol Hill, which has been the main focus of the influence-peddling investigation.

LSB: Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, is another of the ethically-challenged Republicans. In his new book, Tempting Faith, David Kuo alleges “that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly "nonpartisan" events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races.” What a guy!

UPDATE (10/16): Bush White House reportedly worked in support of sexual slavery in Asia as favor to Jack Abramoff

Remember how just two years ago George Bush claimed he wanted to put a stop to human trafficking - i.e., women being forced into sexual slavery? Then why was the Bush administration's premiere advocate for stopping such sexual slavery forced out of his job a while back?

According to the Sunday Los Angeles Times, he was fired because convicted criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff was representing one of the countries that most profits from sexual slavery and human trafficking, the Northern Mariana Islands. Abramoff wanted this Bush administration official fired because the official's anti-human-trafficking agenda - now George Bush's agenda - posed a direct threat to Abramoff's pro-sex-slave client.

But Jack Abramoff doesn't have the power to fire a Bush administration official - all he can do is ask. Someone inside the Bush administration had to do Abramoff's dirty work and fire the official on behalf of Abramoff and his client. According to the Los Angeles Times, that someone was former senior Bush White House official, and now head of the Republican party, Ken Mehlman.

One of George Bush's top aides, the man who ran Bush's re-election campaign, and the man who thanks to George Bush now runs the Republican party, is also reportedly the man who fired a top Bush official in charge of stopping the international human sex slave trade because Jack Abramoff's clients like sex slaves.

George Bush, Ken Mehlman, and the entire Republican party have made a mockery of religious conservatives, and family values. And more importantly, religious conservatives have made a mockery of themselves and their God.

If this is what it means to be a conservative Christian, to elect people who constantly stab you, and your faith, in the back, then it's no wonder Karl Rove's office reportedly thinks these people are nuts. After all, isn't that the definition of insanity: voting for the same people, who are making the same broken promises, again and again and again, while expecting a different result each time?

John Aravosis, AmericaBlog