Hope and Change and Mass-Murder!

Hurrah!

Apart from the great Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com’s top-of-the-page star reporters are feeble,  and a match between any of them and a monster like Jack Abramoff is more like Bambi v. Godzilla than what you might call a fair fight.

For example…

"The money I made, 80 percent of it, my wife and I gave to charity."

So says Jack Abramoff in a recent interview with David Sirota for Salon.com, and since Sirota didn’t do his homework, he records this blatant lie like a good little media stenographer, and right now Abramoff is probably cackling at some country club…

"I used that reporter’s pointy little head just like a paint brush!"

And what a beautiful picture it is!

Jack "Robin Hood" Abramoff, who gave 80% of his ill-gotten gains to charity!

But federal prosecutors also heard this story, and they didn’t buy it.

"One of the most disturbing elements of this whole sordid story is the blatant misuse of charities in a scheme to peddle political influence," said Mark Everson, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

Abramoff’s use and misuse of nonprofits played a key role in each of the three counts of his indictment: conspiracy, mail fraud and tax evasion. He admitted evading $1.7 million in income taxes over three years, in part by using nonprofits to conceal personal income from the IRS.

And what kind of phony "charities" did Abramoff milk like cash-cows for himself and his accomplices?

The American International Center, a bogus "international think tank" at a beach house near Rehoboth Beach, Del. Abramoff and Scanlon used the center to collect millions from their lobbying clients and then send it to their personal bank accounts.

The National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, an obscure conservative organization that Abramoff used to defraud an Indian tribe and an offshore gaming alliance of at least $2 million for his and Scanlon’s personal enrichment.

So what’s the take-away from Sirota’s feeble interview?

Mistakes were made, but Abramoff hasn’t just reformed, he even has a plan to reform national politics, and he was never such a bad fellow anyway. He gave 80% of the money he made to charity!

Between 1984 and 2009, the median net worth of a member of the US House of Representatives increased from $280,000 to $725,000.

And meanwhile the median net worth of a typical American family decreased from $20,648 to $20,500.

Get the picture?

I woke up today in what appeared to be a honeymoon suite for elderly newlyweds…

Four-poster triple-X king-size bed, wing-back armchairs, Pakistani knockoffs of Persian rugs. Outside a generic beachfront faded into mist in both directions, on my balcony a pleasant little breeze could have blown through a cool day in June or a warm day in December in San Diego or Fort Lauderdale.

“Happy Holidays!” said the doorman as I floated by, and it wasn’t very helpful.

Happy Holidays?

Happy Easter? Happy Halloween? Happy Fourth of July?

And that was the end of a chapter of my life.

Christmas in Mexico

Christmas in China

Christmas in Pakistan

Christmas in Chile

Christmas in Afghanistan

Christmas in Baghdad