The Wright Angle
Sept. 4, 2006

Smile, governor, you're going to be on television

By Scott Wright

An article in the Aug. 12 edition of the Birmingham News accused Bob Riley of accepting tens of thousands of dollars from Mississippi tribes during his run for governor in 2002. The only thing missing in the entire article was anyone from Gov. Riley's office claiming the article was factually incorrect or, more bluntly a bald-faced lie.

Then, on Friday, I received an email from the Alabama Democratic Party asking me to contribute to a TV campaign designed to spread the word about all that money Riley accepted.

First of all I have no idea -- absolutely none at all -- how anyone from the Alabama Democratic Party could have ever guessed I am a Democrat.

Seriously, Riley apparently did take the money, because he's certainly not shouting any denials from the rooftop of the state Capitol. That's what I would do if I was being falsely accused of being a hypocrite.

Hypocrite? Yes. If Riley took that money he's a hypocrite, just as surely as you're holding a copy of The Post in your hands. Riley has said repeatedly during his first term that he believes gambling is immoral and he's promised again and again to fight the expansion of gambling in Alabama. So to take money from Indian gaming interests from another state after making promises like those reeks of hypocrisy.

The Alabama Democratic Party thinks so, too. And they want to run a TV ad campaign in the coming weeks to ask the governor why in the world he would knowingly do such a duplicitous thing.

The whole scandalous scenario sounds plausible, too. Michael Scanlon, the Washington lobbyist who has already been convicted of conspiring with Tom DeLay crony Jeff Abramoff to screw as many people as possible out of as much money as possible as quickly as possible, apparently sent Riley $75,000 through the National Republican Congressional Committee back in 2001. Scanlon even made a note in his check book about the money, jotting down a reminder to himself that the money was for the "bama race," the check itself for "Riley."

All the while, Riley was campaigning against Gov. Don Siegelman's education lottery.

Scanlon -- who, oh by the way, was Riley's chief of staff for part of his six-year stint as a U.S. congressman -- had all these financial records embarrassingly revealed during a Senate investigation into the $66 million he and Abramoff screwed six Indian tribes out of between 2001 and 2003.

I actually like Gov. Riley -- think he's done a decent job. Heck, far as I'm concerned, he's the best Democrat the Republicans in this state ever elected governor. And I, like many Democrats in Alabama, supported Riley's $1.2 billion tax plan a few years back. If it hadn't been for the politicians and special interests in his OWN PARTY calling him a turncoat and lying to the voters about exactly whose taxes would have gone up -- the increase was largely aimed at big timber outfits, not you, me and grandma -- he probably could have gotten the plan passed.

I guess it's Riley's fault the whole thing fell flat on its face, though. Surely, since he is a Republican, he knew others in the GOP would resort to lying and cheating if it meant preventing the people of Alabama from approving a tax plan designed to benefit the middle class instead of the filthy rich?

Like I said, you Republicans elected yourselves a pretty good Democrat.

Anyway, Bob Riley's naivete on his tax plan aside, he's obviously not in the dark about the Indian casino money he took from Scanlon and his ilk.

I haven't even mentioned the $500,000 Scanlon gave the Republican Governors Association in 2002. Not long afterwards, according to the Birmingham News, a sizeable chunk of that money was transferred to a "related Republican committee, which in turn donated to Riley."

Then, there's the other $100,000 Scanlon gave to four separate Alabama political action committees, all of which contributed "heavily" to gubernatorial candidate Riley, according to the News.

Riley's only answer to all of the charge was, basically, to admit it -- without actually admitting it, of course. After the story broke, Riley spokesman Josh Blades released a written statement saying "It is logical that Scanlon would want to support his former boss ... Bob Riley has been a longtime opponent of gambling in Alabama and that fact will never change regardless of who contributes money to his campaign."

I think what Blades was trying to say was that Riley will never change his stance on gambling, no matter which crooked-assed former underling of his tries to bribe him for favors. And I believe that because I personally think the governor is an honest man.

But Riley has been a congressman and he has been the governor of this state for four years. Dick Nixon probably wasn't paranoid schizophrenic before he spent 16 years inside political office, either. What I'm trying to say was said much better once by someone who knows a lot more about politics that I do (Lord Acton): Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I don't suppose we'll get Gov. Riley to return all that money, but surely I'm not the only person in Alabama who believes that taking it was the wrong thing for an honest man to do? And if Riley took the money he ought to come out and admit it. Otherwise, he's not the honest man I thought he was.

I'm thinking maybe, if Riley sees that TV ad often enough before Nov. 7, he'll be shamed into leveling with us. So I sent $20 of my gambling money to help get that TV ad on the air.

I guess what goes around comes around, huh governor?