Conservative double dealing? Tucker Carlson ought to be an un-biased authority:
What really smells about Abramoff scandal - The Situation with Tucker Carlson - MSNBC.com: "So it was with not all that much surprise that I read Lou Sheldon's name again recently, in a story about disgraced lobbyist and admitted felon Jack Abramoff. According to the Washington Post, Sheldon allegedly took money from an Abramoff client called eLottery and in return pressured members of Congress to defeat an anti-gambling bill. Sheldon was joined in this by former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed, another longtime Abramoff friend.
The usual good government types will point to the Abramoff scandal as yet another reason we need tougher campaign finance laws and more stringent ethics rules in Washington. Maybe they're right. But there's a deeper kind of corruption here.
Why were supposedly honest ideological conservatives like Sheldon and Reed and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist involved with Jack Abramoff in the first place? Keep in mind that Abramoff's business wasn't just gambling, which by itself should have been enough to scare off professional moralizers like Sheldon. Jack Abramoff was a lobbyist for Indian gambling. Over the years Abramoff and his now-indicted partner took more than $80 million from a half a dozen tribes in return for their efforts to keep Indian gambling revenues tax free.
Step back and think about this for a second. Indian tribes get a special pass from the federal government to run a high-margin monopoly simply because they are Indian tribes, which is to say, simply because of their ethnicity. This is the worst, least fair form of affirmative action, and it should be anathema to conservatives. Conservatives are supposed to support the idea of a meritocracy, a country where hard work not heredity is the key to success and everyone is equal before the law. Conservatives should despise Indian gambling on principal.
And some still do. But others "