Via Atrios, Harry Reid has gone overboard in a Houston Chronicle op-ed, comparing the Abramoff/DeLay corruption scandal to organized crime:
In 1977, I was appointed chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission. It was a difficult time for the gaming industry and Las Vegas, which were being overrun by organized crime. To that point in my life, I had served in the Nevada Assembly and even as lieutenant governor, but nothing prepared me for my fight with the mob.
Over the next few years, there would be threats on my life, bribes, FBI stings and even a car bomb placed in my family's station wagon. It was a terrifying experience, but at the end of the day, we cleaned up Las Vegas and ushered in a new era of responsibility.
My term on the gaming commission came to an end in 1981, and when it did, I thought I had seen such corruption for the last time. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. It is not quite the mafia of Las Vegas in the 1970s, but what is happening today in Washington is every bit as corrupt and the consequences for our country have been severe.
Our nation's capital has been overrun by organized crime -- Tom DeLay-style.
The gangsters are the lobbyists, cronies and lawmakers who have banded together and abused their power to serve their own self-interest. The casinos are the Capitol, which has had its doors thrown open for special interests to waltz in and help themselves, and the victims, of course, are the American people. There is a price to pay for the culture of corruption, and we can see it in the state of our union.
Yes, the alleged corruption is awful, and must be rooted out. But there is as yet no evidence that the alleged crimes compare to those of the Mafia in scope or magnitude. (An obvious example: no one has tried to murder Reid.) The goal of the minority leader's guilt-by-association is to embarass DeLay in his hometown paper.
Update 1/17: Via Josh Marshall, Reid used the mob metaphor again today:
The idea of Republicans reforming themselves is like asking John Gotti to clean up organized crime. I thought I’d seen the last of corruption when I helped clean up Las Vegas thirty years ago. But, while its not quite the mafia of Las Vegas in the 1970s, what is happening today in Washington is every bit as corrupt and the consequences for our country have been just as severe.
[Disclosure: I worked for Ed Bernstein's 2000 US Senate campaign in Nevada.]
I disagree with your characterization of Reid's mob metaphor as "overboard."
No, no one has tried to whack Reid yet. But that's a simplistic definition of what the mafia is about. Sopranos aside, the main activity of the mafia isn't murder - that's just a tool and a threat, to support the main activity - money-making scams. These include protection rackets, shakedowns, taking control of unions, waste disposal contracts, food supply, construction, money laundering, drug shipments, illegal gambling, and prostitution.
What unites these is the way in which the mafia's role is to conspire to position itself to take a scim off the top of both illegal and legal activities in an illegal way, and then launder those proceeds.
I'd argue that the K Street Project is essentially a corporate lobbying protection racket. New game, new rules, you wanna play, you're gonna pay and make sure that only our guys get jobs. Just because the threat wasn't murder, but being cut out of the legislative process and even being actively punished in ways that would be felt, doesn't change the essence of what it is....a protection racket.
No different than a restaurant having to pay its 10 percent to do business in a neighborhood, then understanding that they'll have to use the "right" suppliers
Josh beat me to it quoting this case...
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007477.php
Then add up the scale of the phoney charities, client fraud, money laundering... on the tens and tens of millions of dollars. That's plenty of juice for the mob, believe me.
Then read Laura Rozen at Warandpiece.com on the Wilkes/Cunningham case, with bogus contracts and bribes, and kickbacks. Tens and tens of millions at stake. Bogus organizations by the dozens.
And its becoming clearer that these different criminal cases share a trait: they involve a game to run these illicit moneys back into the political system, to fuel the republican machine.
Superficially, I'd say its interesting that both mobsters and the Abramoff/Delay crowd have owned friendly restaurants that operate as private hospitality clubs (Signatures).
And, if you want more literally superficial but apt Sopranos stuff, see the Sun Cruz case in Florida, where Abramoff and Kidan seemed to have used legal intimidation to take control, defrauded banks to the tune of 60 mil, and put known made guys connected to the NY 5 Familes on the payroll, who then coincidentally murdered the previous owner. See the Sun-Sentinel, or via Josh...
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007203.php
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_12_04.php
Posted by: Chris | January 19, 2006 at 01:28 PM