A Gracious Note of "Thanks" To Jack Abramoff:
Here's a wee story from the Rude Pundit's past: back in the dark days of the end of the first Reagan administration, the Rude Pundit was at a university, and, tempted by a hot Gipper lover who promised the Rude Pundit handjobs on the back steps of the library, the Rude Pundit joined the College Republicans or, as we were known back then, the "Reagan Youth." The Rude Pundit had conservative leanings, yes, 'tis true, but mostly it was a fine piece of ass in a short skirt that got him heading to meetings. The Rude Pundit wasn't particularly active, but he did go along with the whole Reagan-hates-Commies thing, his father having instilled in him a fear of falling missiles. And during one of these meetings, the Rude Pundit met Jack Abramoff, who so freaked out the Rude Pundit with his self-evident evil that the Rude Pundit went running away from the Reagan Youth, into the pliant, welcoming arms of the liberals on campus. Who offered blow jobs instead of hand jobs.

See, Abramoff, who was the chair of the College Republican National Committee, declared, in essence, that anyone who didn't support Reagan was enabling Communist takeover of America. He was enlisting us, wanting us to help go after the make-up wearing punks and new wavers who made up groups like Students for Divestment. He was on a crusade, Abramoff was, to destroy funding for campus groups that didn't toe the Republican line. Here's Abramoff on March 13, 1983, from the New York Times, sounding much like the Aber Jackemoff that chilled the Rude Pundit that day in the Student Union: Liberal groups are "instrumental in leading anti-Reagan and anti-free market forces on campuses." These groups, inspired by Ralph Nader, included pro-choice and anti-nuke organizations, but most were concerned with worker safety, the environment, and other issues. Abramoff was funded by the RNC, and his lil' packet o' info declared such non-Reagan-fellatin' groups "a major threat to democracy on American campuses," as well as "unethical, undemocratic and unconstitutional."

Abramoff, now getting well-known as Tom DeLay's meat puppet, lobbyist extraordinaire, and hater of Indians everywhere, has been a vile, depraved motherfucker (in the sense that he'd fuck his own mother if he thought it could raise a little cash for conservative candidates) for his entire adult life. In 1982, leading the Reagan Youth against people like Billy Graham, who called for a nuclear freeze, Abramoff declared, "They are supporting the Kremlin line."

Abramoff has long been suckling at the engorged teat of conservative interest money - his "non-partisan" USA Foundation, another 80s flashback, was funded in part by the Adolph Coors Foundation. The USA Foundation "distribute[d] a news service and radio programs to college campuses." This was followed quickly with the Citizens for America Foundation, which sought, according to Abramoff, "to build a network of supporters of the conservative movement and to leapfrog over Congress and the news media with its message." It was a pro-Reagan lobbying organization.

When Jack Abramoff loves you, he will love you like an over-the-hill drama queen loves the hot, young, sexually confused stud who just blew him. Listen to this pro-Contra hummer from 1985, when Reagan was in early-stage dementia and was about to be driven into the legislative hole because of Iran-Contra: "Last year, the question in Congress was, 'Are the Sandinistas good or bad?' In April, it was, 'The Sandinistas are bad, but should we help the contras?' In May, it is, 'How much should we help the contras, and what kind of help?' By fall it will be, 'How much more help can we give them?'"

Of course, once you've sold your soul to Satan, that pointy-tailed bastard wants to get paid, and Abramoff was forced to resign from Citizens for America because Abramoff and the staff had "gone hog wild," according to Sidney Blumenthal in the Washington Post in 1985, with financial "mismanagement" and "lavish spending." Also quitting the CFA back then? Young Grover Norquist, who was busy fluffing the apartheid regime in South Africa at the time. By this point, though, Abramoff was in with conservatives for the long haul, including being in touch with Oliver North "almost daily" to organize a contra speaking tour in 1986.

Then, Abramoff was President of the International Freedom Foundation, and continued to stroke North's Oliver, selling videos of Ollie's testimony, where that fuckin' criminal acted like Al Capone on a coke binge. Said Abramoff, "He was always appreciated by the movement." And in 1995, it was revealed by Newsday that the IFF was "a front organization bankrolled by South Africa's last white rulers to prolong apartheid . . .part of an elaborate intelligence gathering operation, and was designed to be an instrument for 'political warfare' against apartheid's foes." This was confirmed by the South African National Defence Force. Abramoff denied knowing that the organization he ran was really run by South African military intelligence.

But, you know, when Abramoff tried his hand at film producing, making the anti-Soviet Dolph Lundgren vehicle Red Scorpion, released in 1989, the good lobbyist came under severe criticism because of the South African government's involvement in the film, which violated the U.N.'s cultural boycott. Is it any surprise that he called Native Americans "monkeys" and "idiots" while he was ripping them off?

That's all old bidness, isn't it, like the work for the Christian Coalition? Still, this is a big ol' wet kiss "Thank you" to Jack Abramoff. Without you sputtering and yankin' it off about the bad, bad Russkies, the Rude Pundit might not have realized so soon how deluded you conservative fuckers truly were and are.

And it's a "thank you" that you've hung in the game since we met all that time ago. Without you, Tom DeLay and all the other conservatives who you've used and who've used you might not be staring over the edge of the precipice, eyeballing those churning lava baths, ready to consume all of you.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.