THE BRIEFING: BEHIND THE HEADLINES IN WASHINGTON Looking back to Abramoff's youth January 8, 2006 With his menu of guilty pleas this week, the lobbyist Jack Abramoff seems a high-profile embarrassment for former friends in the GOP leadership. But party veterans from the Reagan era recall that Abramoff's Washington career was actually launched, in part, by creating headaches for top GOP brass. In the early '80s, when the Republican National Committee was controlled by moderates allied with Vice President George H.W. Bush, Abramoff infuriated party leaders by transforming the College Republicans into a hard-right version of a communist cell -- complete with loyalty purges and missions to destroy political enemies. ''We probably made it very dictatorial," Abramoff later conceded in an interview. ''But we wanted the College Republicans to remain conservative." Abramoff was chairman of the College Republicans, and his lieutenants were Harvard graduate Grover Norquist, who rose to political fame as president of the American Taxpayers Association, and a young Georgia student named Ralph Reed, who would later become the face of the Christian Coalition. In a memo from the time, Abramoff counseled his troops: ''It is not our job to seek peaceful coexistence with the Left. Our job is to remove them from power permanently." Their favorite movie was ''Patton", based on the bellicose World War II general's life. Abramoff & Co. would pump up the College Republicans' field organizers by forcing them to memorize George C. Scott's key speech in the movie, substituting ''Democrat" for ''Nazi": ''The Democrats are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood! Shoot them in the belly!" Party leaders were appalled by the trio's over-the-top antics (''You choose your words carelessly -- the goal is to win, not to incite," complained one Republican National Committee official) and their lavish spending (''totally irresponsible fiscally," said another). After running out of money, Abramoff set up an allegedly nonpartisan group called USA Foundation to solicit tax deductible money from New Right donors. President Reagan was the College Republicans' hero, but his handlers wouldn't grant the young activists access -- even excluding them from a birthday party that featured hundreds of supporters. When Abramoff begged for a presidential appearance at a College Republican anniversary, his consolation prize was the embodiment of the political moderation he despised: Vice President Bush. Abramoff was also notorious in Washington for his efforts to cut Democratic lobbyists out of lucrative business under a Republican-controlled White House and Congress. But two sons of the lawmaker who was the scion of the Democratic Party during the Reagan era are doing just fine on K Street. O'Neill III sets up a new shingle Thomas P. O'Neill III, the state's former lieutenant governor and a son of the late House Speaker, opened a branch of his Beacon Hill lobby shop in Washington a few months ago, headed by a former National Transportation Safety Board official, Peter Goelz, and is planning an expansion. Business has been good: O'Neill's firm, which houses two Big Dig lobbyists, John D. Cahill and Andrew M. Paven, pushed Massachusetts state interests through the transportation bill recently signed into law. Doesn't a D.C. office bring O'Neill into direct competition with his brother, Christopher ''Kip" O'Neill, whose longtime Washington lobby shop, at $12 million in billings, ranks 90th in town, according to the Center for Public Integrity? ''No," insisted Tom O'Neill. ''We've been pretty steadfast to make sure neither gets in each other's way." Tom O'Neill, whose white mane makes him a dead ringer for his late father, maintains a higher media profile, and admits to missing life in politics. Kip O'Neill keeps his name out of the press, but still runs a PAC for Democratic candidates named after his father, which in 2004 doled out nearly $24,000. But on one project the O'Neill brothers are working on, in unison: They have begun organizing a June ceremony at which the Big Dig's main artery will be officially named the ''Thomas P. 'Tip' O'Neill Tunnel" after the lawmaker who helped secure billions of federal dollars for the project. Bush Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta has committed to be on hand. Ex-professor to take on Alito Among those who will testify against Samuel A. Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court this week is a retired Northeastern University law professor, John G. S. Flym. Flym has been leading the charge against Alito over his not having recused himself from a case involving the Vanguard mutual fund company, at a time when the New Jersey judge owned more than $390,000 in Vanguard funds. Flym represented a Massachusetts woman who had reportedly discovered the connection in a court case trying to win back the assets of her late husband's individual retirement accounts. Flym told The Boston Globe last year that Alito's ''lack of integrity is so flagrant" that he should be kept off the court. ---------------------------------------------------- Bringing faith into contempt By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | January 8, 2006 BY HIS own admission, Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff is a crook. But that isn't the worst that can be said about him. He defrauded his clients of millions of dollars, bribed public officials, cheated on his tax returns, and deceived lenders to qualify for a loan. But that isn't the worst that can be said about him, either. He made himself at home in and contributed to the swamp of corruption that fills Washington with its stench. His e-mails to cronies, with messages like ''Can you smell money?!?!?!" and ''I'd love us to get our mitts on that moolah!!" oozed greed and boorishness. Behind their backs, he crudely mocked those who hired him, calling them ''morons," ''monkeys," ''troglodytes," and ''the stupidest idiots in the land." He played fast and loose with what were supposed to be charitable funds. But not even that is the worst that can be said about him. The worst is that Abramoff is a Jew. Not only a Jew, but an Orthodox Jew -- someone who claims to be committed to strictly observing Jewish law and faithfully adhering to the Torah's ethical standards. But instead of upholding those ethical standards Abramoff trampled on them, and a ''religious" Jew who behaves so corruptly disgraces not only himself but all religious Jews. He brings his faith into contempt. He is guilty of what Jewish tradition calls, with disgust, ''chillul ha-Shem" -- a desecration of God's name. For me -- also an observant Jew -- that is the worst thing of all. Honesty in financial dealings is not optional in Judaism; it is mandatory. The Talmud teaches that when a person is brought to judgment in the world-to-come, the first question the heavenly tribunal puts to him is: ''Did you conduct your business affairs in good faith?" A Jew who takes the values of his religion seriously must be scrupulous in his transactions with others. To be sure, even the saintliest people -- not to mention the rest of us -- sometimes fall short of the values they profess. But Abramoff's criminal deeds and sleazy manner are a lot worse than mere lapses in judgment. One who behaves so unethically and illegally drags more than his own reputation through the mud. He is an embarrassment to his religion and his community, and that comes close to being unforgivable. Far from disguising his Orthodox Jewish identification, Abramoff paraded it publicly, as if that would cleanse his unkosher activities. He produced a violent, expletive-filled movie (1989's ''Red Scorpion"), then turned around and created the Committee for Traditional Jewish Values in Entertainment. He fired off gross and insulting e-mails, but fastidiously rendered ''God" as ''G-d." (''This is a Jewish tradition," he explained to a reporter for The New York Times, ''to not write out God's name in something that might be destroyed.") As the legal stormclouds gathered over his head, he cloaked himself in piety. His ''political activities, like everything in his life, were informed by his religious beliefs," his spokesman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. ''While he did not always meet the standard of his faith, he certainly aspired to do so." For his appearance in the US District Court in Washington last Tuesday, Abramoff made a point of wearing a black fedora -- an element of attire that is de rigeur for men in certain Orthodox Jewish circles. But his show of devoutness was lost on those who looked at that black hat, and the black trench coat he also wore, and saw something considerably more sinister. ''He looks like if he would open that raincoat, he's got half a dozen machine guns inside," Newsweek's Howard Fineman commented on MSNBC. ''He looks," replied Chris Matthews, ''like the guy in 'Godfather II' going after Hyman Roth." Within the Jewish community whose values he so dishonored, there is little sympathy for Abramoff, who is likely to receive a prison sentence of 10 or 11 years. But Jewish tradition also teaches that it is never too late to repent, and that God's hand is always extended to the wrongdoer who is genuinely contrite. ''For all of my remaining days, I will feel tremendous sadness and regret for my conduct and for what I have done," Abramoff told US District Judge Ellen Huvelle last week. ''I only hope that I can merit forgiveness from the Almighty and from those I have wronged or caused to suffer." By themselves, those words will not undo the damage Jack Abramoff has done. But they make a good start. Right now, that is the best that can be said about him. Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.