The Abramoff File - Jack who?

Poor Jack, his name is Black at the White House, where they just can't seem to recall this Abramoff person who personally raised $100,000 for Bush and had the highest profile lobbying firm on K Street? Please. It defies logic. And somebody send Karl a case of Ginkgo biloba. His memory seems to really be failing under the stress of impending indictment.

The White House said Monday night that Rove remembers meeting Abramoff at a 1990s political meeting and considered the lobbyist a "casual acquaintance" since President Bush took office in 2001.

Right, so that would explain how Rove hired Susan Ralston, (Abramoff's former chief assistant) in 2001, straight out of his office, without ever talking to Abramoff about her references? Surely that conversation would stand out.

Meanwhile, Jack is not going down quietly.

Jack Abramoff said in correspondence made public Thursday that President Bush met him “almost a dozen” times, disputing White House claims Bush did not know the former lobbyist at the center of a corruption scandal.

“The guy saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids. Perhaps he has forgotten everything, who knows,” Abramoff wrote in an e-mail to Kim Eisler, national editor for the Washingtonian magazine.

Abramoff added that Bush also once invited him to his Texas ranch.

It's absurd to think that Rove and Bush don't know who he is. His name is number one on the list of Pioneers and in 2004 there were only 327 of them. Not only that he was organizing other people to join the Pioneers and supporting all sorts of other GOP projects. Politicians don't "not notice" guys who pass out that kind of money.

Not to mention they had friends in common. Tom DeLay and Grover Norquist spring to mind immediately. Jack was an intergral part of the K Street Project. It's an insult to the intelligence of the American public to deny the connection.