But He Gave Money To The Dems too!... oh, never mind

One of the supposed "giant-killers" these days if either side of the aisle does something egregious is to say "they did it too/first!" (Admit it -- how many times have you heard "But Clinton did it!" over the last 5 years whenever somebody from the GOP gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar or G.W./Cheney finds their head in the toilet?)

First, "the other guy did it too" equivalence does *not* mean that the crime or questionably-legal/moral act committed is not still a crime or questionable.

Second, a lot of times the "equivalence" is more than a little false -- e.g.: At no point did President Bill Clinton order or authorize warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens within the U.S.

At no point did Clinton authorize the use of torture in any context. (Asan aside here, if anybody can provide me documentation for the contrary to these assertions I will gladly post a retraction and correct the archived text, with an audit entry showing what was changed).

Now, however, one of the all-time bribery guys to come out of the GOP-endorsed and GOP-directed "K Street Project" is one Jack Abramoff, who has already pled guilty to charges that will net him at least a decade behind bars (assuming that his 2007 presidential pardon is not the next page down from Scooter's), and who is likely going to be a buzzy little bee talking to the federal prosecutors.

Because of campaign finance disclosure laws, whatever monies in amounts of over $200/year are donated to either a candidates campaign funds or a special-interest group or PAC are a matter of public record.

NEWSMEAT has a search page that allows you to plug in a contributor's name, and whatever contributions have been made/reported are returned in a table.

One such search result is to the contributions made by Jackie A.

Since 1992, Jack A has contributed $172,933 to GOP candidates, and $88,985 to special interests and PACs.

I cannot find the name of one Democratic candidate, nor do I recognizce any of the PACs listed as being for Democratic causes. (unless the "AMERICANS FOR A REPUBLICAN MAJORITY POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE" or "REPUBLICAN MAJORITY FUND" are really stealth Democratic PACS).

However, I did note, with wholly inappropriate humor, that one of the 2003 recipients of $5,000 was the "RICH POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE."

I kid you not.