The left is just incensed at the unfair "smear" of Harry Reid as an Abramoff stooge. A Kos post generated dozens of comments condeming the "right-wing" press for not absolving their champion.

Not surprisingly, Moonbat criticial reading skills suffer when they panic. The following are comments on the AP article detailing Reid's extensive contacts with Abramoff lobbying associate Ronald Platt over legislation dealing with a minimum wage issue in the Marianas islands.

Conclusion, by any reasonable person, there was no quid pro quo by Reid on this issue. But has AP contacted Senator Reid's office to find out his position on this legislation? Have they looked at his floor statements on it, easily available in the Congressional Record? If they have, they're leaving that key information out.

Is this hard to understand? When investigating an influence peddling and bribery scandal, it's kind of critical to actually look at the results of those efforts. You might have quid, but in this case no quo.

Meanwhile, three more members of Congress have been linked to Abramoff. And guess what? They are all Republicans.

Actually, a reasonable person would note that there is no accusation of quid pro quo on the Marianas issue--the quid pro quo has so far been confined to the writing of letters to Gale Norton on behalf of interested tribes and then receiving large checks the next day. What the two dozen Platt contacts suggest is that Reid is stonewalling when he suggests that he had no contact with Abramoff.

Reid has been around the block a few times--he knows he could have made this a one day story and smelled like a rose if he had called a press conference and laid it all out, but instead he is engaged in a pattern of stonewalling that he has got to know will only end badly for him. Of course the reason you stonewall when you know its a bad thing to do is because you feel you have to...

What's rather hilarious though, is that while complaining about a smear on Reid, the post author immediately turns around and points out that "three more Republicans have been linked to Abramoff." Smears are apparently only bad if they are directed at your own party.

To further emphasize that point, consider Time's "expose" on Bush's Abramoff links. Time publishes a series of pictures

The man Bush is shaking hands with--not Abramoff. Abramoff is the guy in the background whose head is visible just over the President's shoulder. Obviously Time magazine is hoping you'll infer that Bush and Abramoff were having sex because they were clearly in the same room.

Moonbats can't have it both ways--either guilt-by-association applies to everyone, or it applies to no one. If Bush is obviously a crook because he's in the same room as Abramoff, then Reid must be Saddam Hussein for quid pro quo letter-writing and two dozen contacts with an Abramoff lobbyist.

UPDATE: Reading through the comments on the Kos post, I came across this predictable absolution by a Noam Chomsky fan:

proof? We have to prove a neqative for you? (none / 1)

Lawyer/Lobbiest calls senator twice a month so he can include it on his hourly billing in time to go in with his firms payment schedual (sic).

Its seems to me that if a lobbyist can demonstrate that he meets with a Senator or his staff twice a month, then he has a legitimate reason to bill his client for those contacts. Don't believe me? Call up your Senator and try to get an appointment. Pretty tough eh? Now try getting an appointment every two weeks for a year. The question arises as to why this particular lobbyist gets such preferential access? I'm not a Senator, but the only people that get this kind of time from me are either on my payroll or I'm on their payroll.