The Squirm Machine

It's now official. Charlie Sykes and Jessica McBride provide neither good spin or good analysis. Case in point the Marky Mark case. Instead of spinning Green and Graul out of the Abramoff story they simply join the squirm machine.

Green's top aide, that would be congressional Chief of Staff and campaign manager Mark Graul, has admitted to taking and requesting freebies from indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. We know this based on e-mails that Graul himself says are "legitimate."

Charlie asks, "Is there any there there?"

And McBride says, "There is no legitimate allegation of illegality."

Huh?

The "there there," are two violations of House ethics rules and both are illegal.

Sykes goes on to suggest that despite the fact that what Graul did is a violation of ethics rules and illegal (which is OK in his world), there is no "quo for the pro."

How does he know? Abramoff's luxury suites were paid for in part by Indian tribes and foreign sweatshop owners who wanted to "stop legislation aimed at cracking down on sweatshops and sex shops in the American territory."

Abramoff and Calvert had a lot of clients whose interests depended on how members of Congress voted. There can be no doubt Mark Green voted for their interests so when that is shown will McSykes warm to the idea that this is "a story?" More on that later.

The best McBride can come up in her attempted spin for Marky Mark is that the MJS spent too much time, reporters, words on the story, which she says isn't a story anyhow. Wisconsin taxpayers should be frightened by the fact that their hard-earned money is going to a journalism professor who says it is not the media's role to report on taxpayer funded staffers lies to the media and public.

Let's keep in mind in all this, Mark Graul is not someone who his boss would or could characterize as having a "'six degrees of separation' connection" to either him or Abramoff freebies. While Marky Mark's "hoax" may be working with McSykes it certainly isn't going to work with the media and voters.