Great Letter:

Feingold looks better than GOP in Abramoff flap

The letter Steve Finley submitted against U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold was at best uninformed and at worst libelous. He begins by claiming Feingold accepted money from “a now known criminal.”

Why is Finley avoiding the use of Jack Abramoff’s name? Is it because Finley wants to avoid the fact that Abramoff has given money to Republicans? The non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics (www.capitaleye.org/ abramoff.asp) has listed everyone who has received money from Abramoff and Feingold’s name is not on that list. Furthermore, everyone on that list is a Republican, including George W Bush. Abramoff himself was designated a Bush “Pioneer” for raising at least $100,000 for Bush. The White House has said that Bush will keep the Abramoff money.

Feingold didn’t receive money from Abramoff; he received $1,600 from a PAC associated with Greenberg Traurig that employed Abramoff for a while. This money was neither illegal nor tainted. He gave it back anyway.

Finley then implies that because Feingold took money from a “now known criminal” he is no longer fit to sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Where does this leave Bush, and how does Finley feel about that?

As for Finley’s real question, “how many of those wiretapped were U.S. citizens?” According to the New York Times, almost all of the illegal spying has led to innocent Americans except for two. One was a lunatic who wanted to take down the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch and the other wanted directions for detonating a fertilizer bomb.

What is more chilling is the recent report by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that Bush’s political opponents have been the target of many domestic spying incidents.

FISA oversight of NSA spying would have allowed the investigation of the two incidents above while stopping the spying on political opponents.

John Lemberger
Oshkosh