Bigotry

It needs to be said more often, and to their credit Wampum has been shouting this for weeks now, but there is a massive amount of bigotry in the way in which the major media has been covering the Abramoff scandal.

No, not bigotry towards Democrats, though the shoddy reporting tying Democrats into the scandal is a result of it.

It is bigotry toward Native Americans. It is bad enough that Abramoff duped many of these tribes and then in private emails back and forth gloated about it in language that is virtually out of the 19th century "they're savages" handbook, but the media has treated the tribal donations as if they are per se sleazy.

In other words, all tribal money is tainted -- for no other reason than it comes from Native American tribes. It's not outright sleazy, but it sure is not buried too far under the message.

It would be nice if a major publication, say the Washington Post, perhaps the greatest major newspaper offender, or NBC News, easily the greatest broadcast offender paid some attention to an editorial like this:

We've read so many columns lately with the same anti-Indian message that it's almost as if somebody issued a set of talking points. The Jack Abramoff scandal isn't the product of sleazy lobbying or greedy congressmen or even a degenerating political system, goes the current line - it's the fault of all those tribal casinos.

Can't say we're surprised at this chorus. Even though the few tribes that did hire Abramoff have been treated by investigators as his victims, they make too juicy a target for a growing array of anti-Indian forces to pass up. Political posturing adds to the cacophony.

Republicans tarred by Abramoff's networking are looking for a way to drag in Democrats. They figure they can defuse the scandal, like such previous Washington disasters as the savings and loan debacle, by making it bipartisan. Their gimmick is to fudge the line between the crooked lobbyist and the legitimate interest that used his service and point to all the Democrats taking money ''from Abramoff's clients,'' meaning from the Indian tribes.

Yet the tell-tale signal of blaming the victims has not been broadly noticed as of yet. It would be nice if, in addition to saying "Not one Dime", Howard Dean also pointed out the obvious bigotry of the GOP's talking point -- something that will knock the lying bastards off their balance for a bit, and also having the extra weight of being true.

This is hardly the worst crime ever committed by our society against Native Americans, but it is sad that in 21st Century the canards of past centuries still bubble just below the surface with organizations that should know better.