I Don't Know Him

Bush and his staff are about to be caught in another set of lies. Repeatedly denying that Chimpie knows Jack Abramoff, pictures will soon be released showing how disingenuous their evasions and spin have been.

At a press conference, Scott McClellan said if there were pictures, which officials hadn’t found, they might have been taken at a Christmas-party line, where the President poses with hundreds of people. “The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him,” then modifying his statements to say that Abramoff may have had two "private staff level meetings" at the White House.

Well, the story will soon be changing again:

Time has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While Time's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal — like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White House coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s.

In one shot that TIME saw, Bush appears with Abramoff....Another photo shows Bush shaking hands with Abramoff......three other photos are of Bush, Abramoff and, in each view, one of the lobbyist's sons (three of his five children are boys).....A sixth picture shows several Abramoff children with Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Chimpie is trying to keep his frequent meetings with criminal lobbyist, Jack Abramoff hidden from public scrutiny. Since the modus operandi of the Bush machine is “money buys influence,” any thought that Georgie and Abramoff have not sidled up to each other is ludicrous.

Posted on The Human Stain