The Abramoff File - just the facts Uncle Sam

Jeez, reading the WaPo is a real roller coaster ride these days. One minute they're shilling for the White House, the next minute they're taking them to task. In a moment of clarity, this editorial makes an astute observation on the White House stonewalling about their contacts with Abramoff.

Republicans didn't tolerate this kind of behavior from the Clinton White House in the midst of its fundraising scandal. "At every turn, they are stonewalling, covering up and hiding," Haley Barbour, then the head of the Republican National Committee, said as the Clinton administration tried to brush off questions about its fundraising before the 1996 election. Mr. Barbour complained of the administration's "utter contempt . . . for the public's right to know."

Such obstructionism is no more acceptable now. The public understands this: Three-fourths of those surveyed in a new Washington Post/ABC poll said the White House should disclose the contacts. "This needs to be cleared up so the people have confidence in the system," Mr. Bush said. Our point exactly.

Hard to believe this is the same newspaper that employs Deborah Howell.