blatherWatch

Seattle Babble-on: bitchy, bitchy parentheticals about Republican "celebrities"

We really tried to wake up and listen to Sytman & Boze's (KTTH m-f, 5-9a) Big Week. Dave Boze has been off getting married or divorced or liposuctioned or bearing his love child or something equally sneaky and repressed.

The show, on the nearly moribund KTTH, had a well-publicized (well, BlatherWatch covered it) 2 weeks of "celebrity" co-hosts with Dan Sytman, the oldest Young Republican since Ralph Munro. (We kid Dan Sytman).

Truth is, BlatherWatch burns the midnight oil pretty much every night, and could (would) only wake sort-of-up to listen at the desperately early hour this show comes on. We haven't been up that early since we milked cows in the Nooksack Valley back in the day or greeted grubby college dawns bright-eyed, and bushy tailed with a hot steaming cuppa crack.

In otherwords, we missed most of the good stuff, so you wouldn't have to.

The first week's co-host was political entrepreneur and renowned horse's ass, Tim Eyman. Despite some good laughs we've had over his latest bout of colorful woppers and assorted recent embarrassments, we have to admit, he proved the best talk host with his steady flow of bullshit. The essentially caller-free KTTH morning show really needs that steady verbal effluence; and Eyman, inspired by the very idea of himself, lept into the breech. That, we guess, is no surprise; and that he never succeeded in failing to not guide the conversation back to his own self, fulfilled another of our insightful predictions. (The preceding sentence is an example of why we blog- no editor with a watt in her pretty little head woulda let that one go by; but we found it a pristine yet obliquely brilliant communication- the kind of pretentious clarity only a triple negative can bring to the page).

The second week, which we dubbed The Wing Nut Bowl, was a slumgullion of local Republican "celebrities," who broke through our defensive quilting of slumber only fitfully.

("Local Republican celebrity" is a meaningless phrase and we use it ironically. The title of The Washington State Republican Who's Who was changed a few years ago simply to Who?)

Monday's appetizer was "Stefan Sharkansky," the pseudonym of Sound Politics' Eric Earling, who self-describes as an "outside-the-box conservative" (which simply means he's another right-winger who's not getting laid). We were roused up into REM layers only once during Earling/Sharkansky's endless time on the Snide Hour. It was when he admitted that after 3 (three!) years living in Seattle- HE'S NEVER BEEN TO THE PIKE PLACE MARKET! Which leads us to conclude that, not only is Earling not getting laid, he's not getting any decent cheese, either.

Boze gone missing, week II: wing nut bowl

Tim Eyman isn't working out so well replacing the vacationing Dave Boze on the morning drive, Sytman & Boze (KTTH m-f, 5-9a). It was a little embarrassing, maybe, for such a starchy conservative as Dan Sytman when Eyman said Wed., he wished the City of Seattle would just leave the poor strippers- and the men who love them- alone.

We're not used to hearing that kind of licentiousness, or defense of the sporting life on KTTH, and neither is Sytman. For us, it was welcome yet off-putting. We were reminded that despite Eyman's recent opportunistic forays onto the stark landscape of the Christian right (as in the anti-gay rights referendum he recently blew up), at heart, he's really a fraternity brother whose development was arrested somewhere between here and WASU, 1985 and he still hasn't made bail.

Another time he opined that "The sad reality is that most people are fat and ugly." That, we're sure, endeared him to many, but he went on that he just wished those people could all be more like Christie Brinkley.

He also made Dan nervous running in and out of the studio during the show like Mike Webb in a Twinky fugue.

So KTTH Programming Director Tom Clendening decided on a "mixed nuts" approach for next week's fill-ins.

Here's the skedge as announced by Entercom Wednesday:

Monday: Stefan "The Shark" Sharkansky of SoundPolitics.com is a GOP activist and rumored to be on the party payroll. We kid Stefan, but his on-air countenance crackles with a vibrant energy that's conducted obviously from his day job in finance- it has the sizzle of fresh office supplies. His humor-free cooperative site is the state GOP's only real stake in the blogosphere (OK Jim, OrbusMax is important, but it isn't a blog). Stefan got tons of media attention and Party accolades after he tried to obstruct the victory of Governor Gregoire. Stefan is a moderate urban Republican, whose nastiness counters delightfully his alleged moderation. Remember the shark Gilligan had to jump to save the plot? For the R's, Stefan is that shark. He does a admirable job of acting as if everything he says is true.

Tuesday: Rabbi Daniel Lapin is by far the most famous on the list. He's gotten national renown with his impressive Rolodex which has been made very public of late by such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Seattle Weekly, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and the Justice Dep't. We're hoping Dan and the listening audience will get rebbe to share the rich and famous experiences he's had with his rich and famous friends. What's it really like plotting with Jack Abramoff? What does Tom Delay take in his coffee? When you hang with Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, do you ever just talk about chicks? How does it make you feel being questioned by Federal investigators?

Wednesday: Rev. Ken Hutcherson, we hope, can be stopped from talking about Jesus- a topic well-known in talk radio as a real cume killer. Better to get the anti-gay, anti-sex, mega-churched, mega-mouthed evangelical to talk about the things he knows about- like raising Rottweilers, breeding thoroughbred quarter horses; or pushing fags out the door of the Kingdom of Heaven. Or national issues like 'Who would Jesus torture?' Or 'During The Rapture, will Dick Cheney be ready to take the wheel, or will he need to?' or 'Can Rush Limbaugh win redemption?' or 'Have you ever killed anybody?'

Thursday: Republican Party Chair Diane Tebelius, known on the blogs as "Diane Tubeless," is as stiff as concrete meringue, and in way over her head. She has deep roots and some support from the theocratic wing of the Party (she worked for born-again loser and failed Senate candidate, Linda Smith) but they don't trust her much since she became Chairman and had to attempt some consensus building. She can be mean and relentless, a side she's shown only in her various unsuccessful runs at office, but unfortunately for KIRO, you won't hear it on the radio. You will hear platitudes; lip service paid to compassion; but not much about George Bush and few of what the rest of us would call jokes.
She did not, by the way, need a sex change to become Chairman.

Friday: Attorney General Rob McKenna is a wonk, a lawyer and a technocrat, dry as dust on the radio, but he's one of the very few Republican statewide officeholders which makes him a member of a tiny, elite corps. Mainstreamers and moderates such as Sec. of State Sam Reed, Lands Commish Doug Sutherlund, and McKenna, are pretty drab; but they're the only Republicans that can get elected state wide because the short hairs are still held by rural social conservatives and evangelicals who can't come up with candidates who don't scare the horses. No coincidence, Sam Reed won't be on the show- he's still on the shit-list of many party hardies who haven't forgiven him for bravely doing his legal job counting the legal votes during the frivolous Republican 2004 post-election.

Frankly, this line-up won't start any fires, nor scare-up any more callers of listeners than Boze or Eyman usually do.   

Rabbi daniel lapin in the san francisco bay guardian

Fundamentalist Mercer Island talk host, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, our proud Seattle connection to the Abramoff/Delay lobbying scandal is highlighted in the new issue of San Francisco's venerable Bay Guardian ("Rabid Rabbi") in a brilliant, yet dreary piece by BlatherWatch's Michael Hood.

(It's brilliant because we wrote it; dreary because the hard right is such a soul-sucking topic.)

It's introducing home-boy and "show rabbi of the Christian right" to the Bay Area, where he recently moved his talk franchise to San Francisco's mighty conservative talker, KSFO, on Sundays 1-4p. (

We thought they should know him as we all do.

Lapin folded up his Sunday talk show in Seattle in February. He'd been filling in for KSFO hosts and began broadcasting his own Bay Area show in April from a Seattle studio.

Our Lapin files:
Daniel Lapin: The Right's favorite Rabbi by Bill Berkowitz, Media Transparency
Meet the Lapin Brothers  by Rick Anderson, The Seattle Weekly

BlatherWatch posts
More embarrassment for rabbi daniel lapin
Seattle times: rabbi daniel lapin abramoff connections
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: show rabbi of the racists
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: "The Man Who Stands By His Scandal-Ridden Friends"
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: More National Embarrassment
Rabbi daniel lapin, a long look backward

More abramoff embarrassment for rabbi daniel lapin

Once again, erstwhile Seattle talk host, Rabbi Daniel Lapin made national news after newly released documents in the Jack Abramoff scandal show how the disgraced lobbyist secretly routed funds through tax-exempt organizations with the "acquiescence of those in charge." in Sunday's Washington Post.

(Lapin has been all over the right-wing dial in Seattle- on KVI, KKOL, and most recently, KTTH. In April, he moved his weekly talk show to San Francisco's right-wing talker, KSFO Sundays, 1-4p.)

Those in charge and acquiescing, it turns out, are such values community leaders as conservative anti-tax guru, Grover Norquist; former Christian Coalition executive director Ralph "Boyo" Reed; and, once again, Mercer Island's anti-gay activist and anti-recycling fundamentalist, rabbi Daniel Lapin.

E-mails show that Abramoff also moved client money through a conservative Jewish foundation called Toward Tradition, run by longtime Abramoff friend Rabbi Daniel Lapin. In January 2000, when Reed sent Abramoff an $867,000 invoice to be billed to a Choctaw official, Abramoff responded: "Ok, thanks. Please get me the groups we are using, since I want to give this to her all at once." Reed responded: "Amy, Grover, Lapin and one other I will get you."
...
Abramoff tapped the same cluster of tax-exempt groups in 2000 to help defeat legislation to ban gambling on the Internet. Abramoff's client, an online gambling services company called eLottery, donated money to ATR, the policy research center and Toward Tradition.

In May 2000, just before a key vote on the anti-gambling bill, the research center paid for the Scotland trip for then-House Majority Whip DeLay. Toward Tradition hired the wife of DeLay aide Tony C. Rudy, who later pleaded guilty to conspiring to corrupt public officials, saying his wife was paid in exchange for his official actions. Lapin has said his hiring of Lisa Rudy was not connected to any eLottery donations.

"It's not a tax-exempt activity to act as a bag man for Jack Abramoff," Marcus S. Owens, a former Internal Revenue Service official told the Washington Post.

We'll be mighty interested to see if the Bush Justice Department or the IRS will be doing any prosecuting these of these "charities" for their "acquiescence" to Abramoff laundering.

We've reported that Toward Tradition has fallen on hard times since all this has unfolded- the organization has vacated its leased north Mercer Island offices, laid off most of the staff, and is being run- mostly by the good rebbe- and from home.

This isn't the first time his non-profit has been mentioned as a laundromat for the former fat-cat lobbyist. Here's some more reading about the rabid rabbi:
Seattle times: rabbi daniel lapin abramoff connections
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: show rabbi of the racists
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: "The Man Who Stands By His Scandal-Ridden Friends"
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: More National Embarrassment
Rabbi daniel lapin, a long look backward

TALKERS MAGAZINE Heavy 100 weighs heavily on its own credibility

Talkers Magazine, the self-proclaimed "Bible of Talk Radio and the New Talk Media," ranks the "100 most important hosts" in the business every year in its "Heavy Hundred."

It's an honor flaunted up by those who make it and pooed upon by those who don't. It's an annual ritual.

The list is dominated by conservatives, naturally.

The Heaviest Five are, not surprisingly: Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Dr. Laura. Randi Rhodes at 10th beat out O' Reilly, (the bastard) who's at 11th; the nasty scold, Laura Ingraham, 7th; Progressive Ed Shultz came in at 13th; while Air America's Al Franken was 18th; and Hannity's bitch, Alan Colmes, 16th.

Local honors: Seattle talkers John Carlson, (no.76) Michael Medved (no.29) were ushered in this year, Medved for the second time. This is a big deal for Carlson who is not nationally syndicated, and hasn't even been doing that well in the ratings. These rankings aren't about ratings (we'll get to what they are about later).

Rabbi daniel lapin falls on hard times...

Fundamentalist Rabbi Daniel Lapin's non-profit Toward Tradition, named as a laundering conduit in the Jack Abramoff influence peddling scandal is having financial difficulties.

The former KTTH talk host's organization has vacated its leased north Mercer Island offices, laid off most of the staff, and is being run- mostly by the good rebbe- and from home.

Don't feel too sorry for him, though, his new work environment isn't exactly Spartan. His manse zestimated at a little over $1 million is in a luxurious neighborhood on the plush south end of the island near Pioneer Park with its old growth, hiking trails and horse paths.

His friend, talk host Michael Medved (KTTH m-f, 12-3p) lives a few blocks away in a comfy cottage valued at some $1.2 million.

rabbi daniel lapin, 2002-2006 R.I.P.

Your rabbi and ours did his last show on KTTH and the Seattle market Sunday night.

In February, Lapin will begin broadcasting a 3-hour Sunday afternoon show (1-4p) on San Francisco's conservative talker, KSFO. He'll replace David Gold, who is on tape over the weekend. Lapin will be one of the few live hosts KSFO's Sunday schedule, which, like most talk stations is a mishmash of tape delay, gardening shows, and Matt Drudge who isn't dead even though he sounds like he's been embalmed.

The didactic right-wing Lapin will do essentially the same show in Baghdad by the Bay as he does in Seattle. "I'm a one trick guy," he told a listener Sunday. The KSFO show will be streamed on the Net.

(We're not sure if it's a case of the rat deserting the ship or vice versa. Neither Lapin nor Entercom's KTTH have had a great year- the station is nearly moribund, even Rush Limbaugh is in the tank; and Lapin has been more than touched by the Abramoff scandal).

Lapin's show, whose broadcast time was in part purchased by his non-profit Toward Tradition, has never made it in the real radio marketplace. The show, over the years, has meandered around the right-wing dial from KVI to KKOL to KGNW to KTTH. It was syndicated for a short time.

He's always had a small but loyal audience of mostly fundamentalist Christians for his lectures on morality and human behavior that usually ended in a political lesson or a screed against "secular fundamentalists."

It was pretty boring radio. He's much more interesting off the air. Here's BlatherWatch's extensive file on the rebbe.

Seattle times: rabbi daniel lapin abramoff connections
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: show rabbi of the racists
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: "The Man Who Stands By His Scandal-Ridden Friends"
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: More National Embarrassment
Rabbi daniel lapin, a long look backward
The rabbi with the tinfoil yarmulke (and we thought he was just boring...)

Rabbi Daniel Lapin: show rabbi of the racists

Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. --Nietzsche

Meet Rabbi Daniel Lapin- David Duke's favorite Jew.

But, you ask, where could this anti-semitic, racist, white separatist possibly find common ground with this Jewish man of God?

(You're right- it's downright counter-intuitive. Lapin is an Orthodox rabbi from the enlightened Pacific Northwest, and an influential voice of the religious right. Nazi-but-nice David Duke with his blow-dried Republican "statesman" haircut is a racist, and anti-Semite who traded his KKK percale for custom 2-buttons from Barney's of Baton Rouge).

As it turns out, they have lots in common. Both have been Republicans, (Lapin still is one) and both agree with Adolf Hitler that Jews are largely responsible for "filth and debasement" of Western culture.

Duke is a holocaust denier; Lapin has stood up for holocaust deniers and says "enough already" about all this Holocaust stuff.

Both have multi-syllabic rationales resounding with truthiness for the God-given superiority of Western Civilization and disdain for those (mostly colored) peoples who hadn't foresight to be born into the Judeo-Christian tradition. 

(OK, OK, Duke would take strong exception to the "Judeo" part of that equation, but Lapin's specialty is "strengthening understanding between Christians and Jews" and ecumenical "bridge-building" between secular wackos. Maybe he could look beyond Duke's Christian Identity belief that Jews are the "Children of Satan." Or, in the interest of shared values, overlook Duke's dark bayou dreams of lampshades made out of such as the good rebbe.)

We're not sure how Rabbi Lapin feels about Duke, but Duke really likes Rabbi Lapin- as Duke has written, "...there are so few honest voices like that of Rabbi Lapin."

BlatherWatch has long chronicled the strange case of Rabbi Daniel Lapin, the clergyman whose life and work has been muddied lately by revelations of his long and deep ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Until this scandal, Lapin for us was but a long-winded didact whose haughty South African-accented voice has frequented Seattle talk radio over the years in fill-ins for right-wing talkers; his own briefly syndicated Sunday evening shows; and presently on his weekly kulturkampf he buys onto local right-wing talker, KTTH (Sundays, 7=10p).

Rabbi Daniel Lapin speaks

KTTH talker Rabbi Daniel Lapin (Sundays 7-10p) the "show rabbi of the religious right," long entangled in the Abramoff/Delay scandal and about whom we've so often written, has finally written a tome 'splainin' everything.

Apparently, he's squeaky clean and been scurrilized by that pesky and "notoriously inaccurate" news media. Read his massive multi-syllabic missive here.

We've got some Lapin stuff in the pipeline and don't have the time to analyze it today. Let's just say his version of his 20-year friendship with Abramoff and that of his charity, Toward Tradition, through which, federal prosecutors say $50,000 was washed by Abramoff to an aide to Tom DeLay in return for favorable legislation, runs so counter to published news accounts going back 10 years, it appears to bolster those parallel universe theories so popular right now.

Veteran newsie Rick Anderson on the Seattle Weekly, the reporter who's been on this story as long or longer than we have, has written an excellent synopsis and quick analysis of Lapin's long-winded letter here.

Seattle times: rabbi daniel lapin abramoff connections

Replete with Daniel Lapin's (KTTH Sundays, 7-10p) multi-syllabic blithering, he and his non-profit's entanglement with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff is well exposed in an excellent piece by Seattle Times reporters David Postman and Hal Bernton in this morning's paper. 

Lapin has deep ties to the sleazy Republican Washington operator, and actually introduced him to Tom Delay, who permanently resigned his House leadership position over the weekend because of this and other scandals.

Abramoff was board chair and longtime member of Lapin's non-profit Toward Tradition, along with syndicated neocon talk-host Michael Medved (KTTH m-f, 12-3p).

According to the Times piece, Toward Tradition paid Lisa Rudy, wife of Tony Rudy, at the time a senior aide to DeLay. Tony Rudy later went to work as a lobbyist for Abramoff.

She was to organize a conference for Toward Tradition in the fall of 2000. (Whether there was actually work done or this was more Abramoff money-laundering is a question yet unanswered.)

A total of $50,000 was paid to Rudy. Abramoff's plea agreement says the money was obtained from clients that benefited from the aide's "official actions regarding the legislation on Internet gambling or opposing postal rate increases."

At the time he approached Lapin about hiring Lisa Rudy, Abramoff was working in the D.C. office of Seattle's Preston Gates.

Toward Tradition's board approved hiring Lisa Rudy in 2000 and soon after Abramoff sent a $25,000 check from a firm called eLottery. It came with instructions that Rudy was to be paid $5,000 a month.

eLottery is a Connecticut company that provides states with online lotteries. The company hired Abramoff to help stop the federal Internet Gambling Prohibition Act.

Lapin said other checks came from another Abramoff client, the Magazine Publishers of America. Those checks, too, came with directions to keep paying Rudy.

Here is one of the foremost conservative values-mongers in the country. Newt Gingrich has called him "my spiritual guide."

Frank Rich of the NYTimes  has called him the "show rabbi of the religious right."

He's clergy who regularly preaches against sin and in particular- against gambling- yet here's the pathetic proof of his astounding hypocrisy-  accepting checks from a professional lottery operation for what may be dubious or non-existence services.

We've been harping on Lapin for years. He's always been controverial and has weathered dark clouds over his actions many times before. Read our Rabbi Daniel Lapin, A Long Look Backward

From our June post, Rabbi Daniel Lapin: More National Embarrassment

Lapin is a leader in the national Values Community; friend of such faith-based charlatans as Rev. Ken Hutcherson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Watergate felon turned preacher, and Charles Colson He's a "spiritual advisor" to Newt Gingrich and a hard-ass, pompous, self-aggrandizing, social conservative.

He helped Hutcherson organize and spoke at last year's anti-gay "Mayday for Marriage " rallies in Seattle and Washington DC, that proved so influential in the November election of George W. Bush.

The haughty silver-tongued former South African buys his own radio time Sunday evenings (7-10p) from Entercom’s local KTTH. His talk show is a folksy, “(Everybody needs a rabbi,” he always says) kulturkampf, interlaced with schmaltz, advice to the lovelorn and diatribing political monologues.

He's a champion of marriage between people of the same faith, same species, but different genders, of course.

Lapin's tedious yet dangerous talk show on Sunday nights is vanity radio- bought and paid for by Toward Tradition.

Entercom has no stomach for scandal as we've seen in the Mike Webb firing--as this messy scandal unfolds, how much longer can they keep Lapin's name on their programming list?

Read the blatherWatch files on Lapin:

Rabbi Daniel Lapin's Name Resurfaces in Investigation
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: "The Man Who Stands By His Scandal-Ridden Friends"
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: More National Embarrassment
Rabbi Daniel Lapin, A Long Look Backward
The Rabbi With the Tinfoil Yarmulke (and we thought he was just boring...)

Michael Medved speaks up about jack abramoff- gives him 1.5 stars

Although he never mentioned BlatherWatch, syndicated neocon talker and movie critic Michael Medved (KTTH m-f, 12-3p) answered our plea to speak up about his relationship with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff who pleaded guilty to even more felonious skeeviness Wednesday in Miami.

As we reported, Medved has known him for years- in Los Angeles when Abramoff was the producer of bad movies and Medved was a PBS movie critic. He also knew him from serving on the board of his friend, the scandal-tainted Rabbi Daniel Lapin's (KTTH m-f, 7-10p) non-profit Toward Tradition. Medved says he went out to dinner with Abramoff a few times; told him after a private screening that his scurrilous 1989 potboiler Red Scorpion was so bad, it was "unreleasable;" and never took a dime from the man for any reason.

Medved was forthright, and though we have serious questions about some of Lapin's faith-based activities in the political arena, we have no reason to doubt Medved was more involved than he says he was.

(Will Lapin ever speak out on Abramoff? We listen to his tedious show until we're comatose every Sunday, but so far, no luck.)

He said he felt betrayed by Abramoff. He said he felt sorry for him, for the kosher dilly of a pickle he's got himself into despite his religiousness and that he has actively supported many causes of which Medved approves and endorses. 

Michael Medved needs to speak up about jack abramoff

Super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff has copped a plea. He's admitted ripping off Indian tribes and now he's singing. For sure there'll be big-name Congressional Republicans and Bush administration honchos taking a dive or singing some songs- maybe operas- to prosecutors. Maybe a few Democrats, too; but this is a Republican scandal, though it's darn hard to hear a thing about it on right-wing talk radio.

We're especially wondering  why syndicated neocon Michael Medved (KTTH m-f, 12-3p ) isn't talking about this on the radio? This is the above-the-fold story of today and yesterday and he could provide some vivid first person color. Medved is on the tu-toi with the notorious Abramoff and sat with him for years on the board of Rabbi Daniel Lapin's (KTTH Sundays 7-9p) charity, Toward Tradition, based on Mercer Island. (Abramoff was finally dumped off the board last summer after he was indicted. Lapin until then had dismissed the whole thing as an accounting error).

Medved must have known him in Los Angeles when he was a movie critic and Abramoff was a maker of bad movies.

Michael owes us some inside insights on how this big operator operates. Cream & sugar or black? Martini up or over? Boxers of briefs? Inquiring minds need to know. And besides, it'd be great radio and a scoop.

As far as we know, Medved hasn't said anything more on the radio about Abramoff since saying, "He's not been charged with anything." That was many felonies  ago.

Is Michael disappointed with his old friend for this porqueria? Or is he just another victim of the media? 

To refresh your memory, Lapin, "show rabbi of the religious right,"(as New York Times columnist Frank Rich calls him) is the guy who owns the bragging rights to having introduced Abramoff to indicted meanieocon Tom Delay, which is something akin to introducing Leopold to Loeb.

From our June post, Rabbi Daniel Lapin: More National Embarrassment

Lapin is a leader in the national Values Community; friend of such faith-based charlatans as Rev. Ken Hutcherson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Watergate felon turned preacher, and Charles Colson He's a "spiritual advisor" to Newt Gingrich and a hard-ass, pompous, self-aggrandizing, social conservative.

He helped Hutcherson organize and spoke at last year's anti-gay "Mayday for Marriage " rallies in Seattle and Washington DC, that proved so influential in the November election of George W. Bush.

The haughty silver-tongued former South African buys his own radio time Sunday evenings (7-10p) from Entercom’s local KTTH. His talk show is a folksy, “(Everybody needs a rabbi,” he always says) kulturkampf, interlaced with schmaltz, advice to the lovelorn and diatribing political monologues.

He's a champion of marriage between people of the same faith, same species, but different genders, of course.

Lapin has come very much closer to the matasticizing scandal than Medved apparently has- read all the BlatherWatch file on Lapin:

rabbi daniel lapin--oy gevalt!--back in the news...

We’d naively thought he was just a quaintly opinionated blowhard with the haughty accent of an Afrikaaner who’d done fill-in on KVI and KTTH and bought himself onto the radio in the weird off-hours usually reserved for secular infomercials for male performance supplements.

On-air he’s a folksy clergyman ("Everybody needs a rabbi,” he always says) who’s a bit of a yenta, a match-maker, and champion of marriage between people of the same faith, same species, but different genders; he’s didactic and condescending--and speaks in paragraphs--long paragraphs. Northwest goyim in general have little contact with Jews, especially religious ones, so listeners gush and treat him like an exotic animal--sort of their pet Jew.

We Washingtonians are always proud of those of our own who gain national note, or, notoriety--no matter. We're as proud of the Green River Killer as we are of August Wilson; we always point up to our guys, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain; everyone we know is proud to have a friend who has a friend who knew Ted Bundy.

So with pride we report another homey making it big on the Right Coast. He's Rabbi Daniel "Danny Rabbit" Lapin, "show rabbi of the religious right,"(as Frank Rich has called him) Seattle vanity radio talk host (KTTH Sun. 7-9p) and the guy who owns the bragging rights to having introduced indicted super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to indicted meanieocon Tom Delay, which is something akin to introducing Bonnie to Clyde.

(Abramoff was once board chair and longtime director (with syndicated talk host, and close Lapin friend Michael Medved) of Lapin's Mercer Island non-profit foundation, Toward Tradition. He was finally dumped from the board list on the TT website after his recent indictment) Lapin, until recently had dismissed the scandal as an accounting error.

In an investigative report in Sunday's Washington Post, How a Lobbyist Stacked the Deck Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi tell how Abramoff derailed the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act which was backed by many Christian conservatives and anti-gambling groups, and who were astonished when it failed to pass the House.

Arrayed against eLottery were many leading groups on the religious right who were pushing to ban Internet gambling, including the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition. James Dobson, influential leader of Focus on the Family, praised the bill in an opinion piece for the New York Times.

butt lickings, wea culpas, trends, prell fall-out, passing the buck and the gas

~We're grateful to Allan Prell for answering our plaintive, ingratiating, butt-licking pleas and responding via BlatherWatch to his legions of fans who've pelted us with supportive emails. He didn't' have to--especially after the way we kicked him around for months. Wea culpa, but we're sure sorry now, Allan...But don't hold your breath waiting for KPTK PD Jim Trapp, to bring you in and localize the Air America station, he never listens, and apparently speaks only to God...

~More bad news from KIRO: the self-satisfied, self-congratulatory Frank Shiers will be filling in all week on the 9-to-noon. He's sucking up to listeners with lavish compliments and florid flattery, hoping perhaps, to win Prell's spot by acclamation...judging from our mail there's fat chance of that...

~Flattery it wasn't for Erin Hart (9p-1a Sat. & Sun) who followed Shiers Sunday night: What in the hell did he mean when he said, "You want fire in the hole? You'll love the Erin Hart Show..." Was it a mixed metaphor or was he just glad to see her? Couldn't been the former--Shiers never screws up a cliche...

~Our generous and well, spiritual offer to KIRO management (Tom & Dave) to commune with pissed-off listeners on Blatherwatch after last week's firings sure fell flat. We thought for sure they'd use this site in a Jimmy Carter moment to intervene with listeners and help heal the wounds caused by their ineptitude. We're here to serve, and as with so many wannabe saints and choir boys, we were blown off.

~We wasted another Sunday night monitoring Rabbi "Danny Rabbit" Lapin, (KTTH m-f, 7-10p) hoping he'd comment on the metastasizing scandal around his friend Jack Abramoff. The disgraced

katrina, katrina: monday oddems at the nadir of the bush regime

--The remarks of one of John Carlson's callers last week typifies the dittohead mentality of the crowd loyal to the right-wing talk station. The guy blamed the National Education Association (the teacher's union!) for the crime and anarchy in New Orleans and suggested the Nat'l Guard start "gut shooting" the looters.
~~
--What is it with Michael Medved and his weird pronunciations? It was bad enough he tried to be a native Loozeanna speaker with that "N'Awlin's" business. He had the words but not the tune, because let's face it, he's an Ivy League elite, not a good ol' boy, though he tries to play one on the radio. He also drove us nuts saying "HAIRicane Katrina." It was like when he says, "Kew (rhymes with pew) Klux Klan." There's something wrong over there at Medved Central, it may be just a neocon thing, but we're beginning to suspect it's neurological.
~~
Here are a couple of topics you won't hear discussed on rightwing radio:

--A must-read for conservatives who always write us spouting the boilerplate you hear from Rush and Sean (you know who you are) is Thumbing Nervously Through the Conservative Rulebook by New York Times' Robin Toner. It's about how the conservatives in power have had their principles "challenged, again and again, by the messy realities of governing."
~~

--is the war really a lost? Has the civil war already started in Iraq despite the US? Is the best we can do is to get the hell out?
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--Jeff Reifman over at Evergreen Politics has published a list of advertisers on the rightwing station KTTH and suggests we boycott them. It's a formidable list--and though we know there's good intentions over there at one of our favorite websites, we gotta say it, boycotts like this never work. While we'd never set foot in a Walmart unless there was a disaster and we needed to do a little creative looting, (to provide for our family, of course) we give boycotts little credence as a political action. They're effective when they're focused narrowly, putting direct pressure on a specific entity who can really feel the pressure. We remember a few years ago when evangelicals called for a Disney boycott (you know how sinful they are, playing up to the fags the way they do; letting Minnie and Mickey cohabitate and letting those ducks run around with no pants). It fell on its face. As Rev. Ken Hutcherson proved, a threat by a group or the right person can be more effective than an actual boycott. Though most corporate entities aren't as timid as Microsoft is about such matters--Disney's Michael Eisner ignored the empty threats of Christian reprisal and carried on.
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--a reader writes that KIRO's Dave Ross, Allen Prell, Erin Hart and Mike Webb have been doing a great job reporting and calling bullshit on the Bush administration's incompetence. We'd say: here, here!
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--Right-wing talkers are in denial of the Bush administration meltdown. As always, they're changing the subject. Tonight Danny "Rabbit" Lapin, (KTTH Sundays, 7-10p) the religious right's "show rabbi," led an in-depth discussion on whether married women should wear make up. (his answer: a resounding Yea!) We listen to the rabbi faithfully and we've yet to hear him deal with the scandal that's indicted his friend and benefactor Jack Abramoff, and came closer last week to another of the rebbi's buddies, House Minority Leader, Tom Delay. Read our file on Lapin, here  Our friend, the apolitically correct and  media critic, Edgar "Choch" Manana, commented recently: "I'd just like shake Danny Lapin, and say, 'Dude--don't you know these are the people who made lampshades out of people like you?
~~
--KPTK media flack Heather Rosendahl made a special point of writing to tell us absolutely nothing. At least she responded for once. She did say there's a "surprise" coming up today on the Seattle liberal talk station. We already knew that and reported last week that the station was rearranging its syndicated talkers, ho-hum. We were hoping they'd leak us some inside dope to blog if there was anything actually exciting going on. We also whined bitterly--as we always do--about how stupid and cheap they are for not hiring any local talent. Maybe that's why they treat us like a ugly girlfriend after a so-so booty call--as everyone else in the explaining industry does, hoping we'll just go away. Everybody reads our drivel, but rarely do we get a mention or any respect for the wonderful work we do. Maybe there'll be an announcement of something exciting going on over at 1090AM today, and if there is, it'll be another example of them not knowing how to promote their way out of a paper bag...or out of the bottom percentiles in the market. Nobody listens to the station--which is the problem. So why don't they put an ounce of effort to otherwise promote it? We suggest running some ads on KVI...or NPR...or KIRO even.
~~
--Faith-based charlatan Pat Robertson is as welcome in the Bush White House as he was in the fortified mansions of such staunch Christian leaders as former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor, and the confiscatory Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, both partners in Robertson's African faith-based gold and diamond mines. As Max Blumenthal reports in The Nation, Robertson is really cleaning up after the Katrina disaster. His $66 million relief organization, Operation Blessing is prominently featured on FEMA's list of charitable groups accepting donations for hurricane relief. Blumenthal writes: " His Regent University gave John Ashcroft a cushy professorship to cool his heels after his contentious tenure as US Attorney General. And Robertson's legal foundation, the American Center for Law and Justice, is spearheading the effort to rally right-wing Christian support for Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s confirmation as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court."
~~
--IS THIS NEWS? DEP'T: Reuters reports that "At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast. One is Shaw Group Inc. and the other is Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. Vice President Dick Cheney is a former head of Halliburton. Bechtel National Inc., a unit of San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp., has also been selected by FEMA to provide short-term housing for people displaced by the hurricane. Bush named Bechtel's CEO to his Export Council and put the former CEO of Bechtel Energy in charge of the Overseas Private Investment Corp.

rabbi daniel lapin's name resurfaces in investigation

The Jack Abramoff/Delay scandal gets more odiferous every day and reveals more layers than a Walla Walla Sweet--many of which are peeling off at the feet of prestigious Seattle law firm Preston Gates, for whom Abramoff worked around the turn of the century.

Seattle Weekly reporter Rick Anderson's latest installment in this smelly saga places controversial fundamentalist talk show host Rabbi Daniel Lapin (KTTH,Sundays 7-10p) and Toward Traditon, his Mercer Island charity, a little closer to the stink.

Lapin is the ultra-orthodox Seattle rabbi tangled in the unfolding influence-peddling-and-everything else scandal in the Capitol and swirling around his close political friends: disgraced superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, meaneocon Tom DeLay, Christian conprop guru Ralph Reed and, distantly, neocon theorist and activist Grover Norquist.

Lapin dismisses the scandal as an accounting error.

Anderson's story reports US Senate investigations that reveal the boy-faced Reed's laundering scheme for money supplied by an Indian casino client and disguised as a "deceptive Deep South antigambling campaign."

That campaign and other Reed-managed antigambling drives are now part of a U.S. probe into the allegedly fraudulent practices of former Preston Gates D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who arranged the secret money flow, investigators say. Documents indicate Abramoff, during and after his Preston Gates years, steered more than $4 million in tribal gaming money to gambling foe Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition.

This astounding story of greed and hypocrisy, comes close to Lapin. Anderson writes: 

New Senate documents show Seattle radio host Rabbi Daniel Lapin was more than just a friend and fellow religious conservative to embattled D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff (see: "Meet the Lapin Brothers," May 11). Lapin was also on the payroll of Abramoff's D.C. charity, Capital Athletic Foundation. According to Abramoff's e-mails, CAF was sometimes used as a money conduit to avoid paying higher income taxes.

At one point, the e-mails state, Abramoff proposed using Lapin and another person on CAF's payroll to create a "research" project as a tax write-off, but Abramoff's accountant worried the IRS would see it as a "sham transaction," and the idea was apparently dropped. Abramoff also proposed using Lapin's Mercer Island charity, Toward Tradition, as an apparent money pass-through to help fund Ralph Reed's antigambling drives (see main story), then learned the charity didn't have the correct IRS status.

There is no indication Lapin, who would not comment last week, was aware of the schemes. Abramoff is a board member of Lapin's charity, and Lapin was one of four people who collectively earned $20,000 a month at Abramoff's D.C. charity, according to Senate documents.

Rabbi Lapin has positioned himself as a stern moral leader in the Seattle area, even partnering with controversial anti-gay evangelical Rev. Ken Hutcherson organizing anti-gay rights events and getting into faith-based pissing matches with local liberal clergy. BlatherWatch wonders how long the veneer of local respectability will last for the the rabbi as Sen. McCain's investigations in Washington  unfolds.

Read the whole blatherWatch file on Lapin:

rabbi daniel lapin: a man who stands by his scandal-ridden friends

rabbi daniel lapin: more national embarrassment

rabbi daniel lapin, a long look backward

the rabbi with the tinfoil yarmulke (and we thought he was just boring...)

rabbi daniel lapin: "the man who stands by his scandal-ridden friends"

Rabbi Daniel Lapin came home Sunday night from Washington DC, just in time to take the microphone on his evening talk show (KTTH Sundays 7-10p) midway though it.

BlatherWatch was listening in hopes the good rebbi might address some of the questions brought up last week in the national press.

Lapin is the ultra-orthodox Seattle rabbi tangled in the unfolding influence-peddling-and-everything else scandal in the Capitol and swirling around his close political friends: disgraced superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, meaneocon Tom DeLay, Christian conprop guru Ralph Reed and, distantly, neocon theorist and activist Grover Norquist.

Lapin dismisses the scandal as an accounting error.

So far Lapin has been only peripheral to the affair, but it's provided some good laughs for us, and his proximity to it has sullied the pure and sanctimonious image he always tries to maintain.

Lapin is the darling of the Christian right; friends and co-conspirator with stalwart national conservative supernovae like Delay, Norquist, Reed, Newt Gingrich, Pat Robertson, and Rev. Ken Hutcherson. These are people with profound influence in Washington these days.

The Washington Post reports Lapin had a private Shabbat dinner with George W. Bush last year.

We've reported the rebbi's speckled past and his many interesting political ideas on many interesting issues, including some whimsical ones on The Holocaust.

We were not disappointed--and not surprised to hear Sunday night some fancy dissembling from the influential "show rabbi of the religious right," as NY Times Frank Rich calls him.

The Washington Post reported last week that Lapin's name had come up in the Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearings investigating Abramoff's dealings representing Indian casino interests.

In an email, Abramoff asked Lapin to help him sex-up his resume to help him get into the exclusive Cosmos Club whose members include Nobel laureates. "Most prospective members have received awards and I have received none," he whined. 

Lapin answered, "Let's organize your many prestigious awards so they're ready to 'hang on the wall.' "

Later that day, Lapin expounded, "Yes, I just need to know what needs to be produced ... letters? Plaques? Neither?"

Sunday, Lapin finally introduced the sordid Abramoff mess to his listeners by admitting that his old friend had become very powerful and done some things that were probably wrong.

But the emails promising to pad the resume? A "jocular interchange," he said in his haughty Afrikaner accent.

Then, amazingly, he blamed it all on the Post Intelligencer, the local daily whose Washington correspondent Charlie Pope reported the episode. Lapin never mentioned that the Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote a similar report on the same day.

"They stripped out the smiley faces and other emoticons," he said on the radio. That was a change from his last week's story, when he told Charlie Pope he couldn't recall the exchange, "I wish I could help you, but no, I have no recollection."

The thought of the sarcastic Lapin and the cynical Washington shark Abramoff adorning their emails with those annoying little :)'s strains our credulity.

The story that it was all in jest is also questionable considering Abramoff's email the next day  detailing some instructions of deception:

"Probably just a few clever titles of awards, dates and that's it," he wrote. "As long as you can be the person to verify them (or we can have someone else verify one and you the other), we should be set. Do you have any creative titles or should I dip into my bag of tricks?"

Lapin didn't mention the original WAPO story because a less embarrassing piece, The Republicans' Rabbi-in-Arms: Christian Conservatives See a Soul Mate in the Man Who Stands by His Scandal-Ridden Friends by Hannah Rosin appeared in Saturday's Style section.

For evangelicals who are used to reading about Jews as God's chosen people, he solves an essential mystery: "A lot of people are surprised when they leave church and encounter essentially Dershowitz Judaism, Jews who are liberal . . . ," says conservative activist Grover Norquist, who is also a friend. "Lapin is the opposite of that."

For conservatives searching for biblical foundations for their political positions, Lapin is validation from the original source. His specialty is finding support in the Torah for what turns out to be the current Republican platform: lower taxes, decreased regulation, pro-traditional family policies.

"The principles of the Republican Party and the convictions of our president more closely parallel the moral vision of the God of Abraham than those of anyone else," Lapin said at the dinner with Bush, hosted by Ralph Reed.

Lapin is a man of great charm and rhetorical skill. "He could talk a dog off a meat wagon," says a former KVI producer.

And he sure is a loyal friend. Rosin writes:

In an earlier set of e-mails, Abramoff calls his Indian clients "morons" and "monkeys." For that, Daniel Lapin found the language to criticize his old friend, calling his insults "horrible, awful." But he stops short of saying what Medved does, that as an Orthodox Jew Abramoff "disgraced the Torah." Instead, he edges more toward pastoral forgiveness.

"Abramoff created an extremely effective ideological machine, and I think that bothered many people on the moderate side," says Lapin. "Nobody claims Abramoff did anything different than anyone else. He's a friend of mine and I've seen him do many, many wonderful and decent things. My argument is that a human being is a very complicated amalgam. We've all done things we're not proud of."

If Mr. Abramoff is found guilty of any crime, we're praying that the good rabbi will remain consistent and call for the same measure of mercy that he'd show any other common criminal: bupkus.

rabbi daniel lapin: more national embarrassment

We've been telling you about him for months. He's Rabbi Daniel Lapin, the situationally ethical KTTH talk host (Sundays 7-10p) and "show rabbi" for the Christian right.

The Mercer Island ultraconservative famously introduced Tom Delay, the scandal-plagued House Majority Leader to now disgraced superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, who sits on the board (with talk jock Michael Medved) of Lapin's charity, Toward Tradition. Read blatherWatch's The Rabbi With The Tinfoil Yarmulke (And We Thought He Was Just Boring...)

Abramoff is being investigated by the Senate, the House, the Justice Department, and a federal grand jury for a plethora of questionable business practices and shady political dealings.

In Wednesday's Senate hearing into Abramoff's alleged defrauding of Indian tribes, the verity of Lapin's skewed moral compass was again exposed, this time revealing the trivial deceptive natures of both of these allegedly religious men.

Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank reported an email exchange between Abramoff and Lapin read in the hearing with Lapin agreeing to help pad Abramoff's resume: 

"I hate to ask you for your help with something so silly but I've been nominated for membership in the Cosmos Club, which is a very distinguished club in Washington, DC, comprised of Nobel Prize winners, etc.," Abramoff wrote.

"Problem for me is that most prospective members have received awards and I have received none. I was wondering if you thought it possible that I could put that I have received an award from Toward Tradition with a sufficiently academic title, perhaps something like Scholar of Talmudic Studies?"

There were titters in the audience as Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) read aloud the email, then outright laughter as he continued reading: "Indeed, it would be even better if it were possible that I received these in years past, if you know what I mean."

The rabbi, conservative radio host Daniel Lapin, gave his blessing. "I just need to know what needs to be produced," he wrote. "Letters? Plaques?"

Read more details of this silly, ass-kissing deception in this Seattle Post Intelligencer report.

Lapin is a leader in the national Values Community; friend of Rev. Ken Hutcherson, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Watergate felon turned preacher, Charles Colson, "spiritual advisor" of Newt Gingrich and a hard-ass, pompous, self-aggrandizing, social conservative.

He helped Hutcherson organize and spoke at last year's antigay "Mayday for Marriage " rallies in Seattle and Washington DC, that proved so influential in the November election of George W. Bush.

The haughty silver-tongued former South African buys his own radio time Sunday evenings (7-10p) from Entercom’s local KTTH. His talk show is a folksy, “(Everybody needs a rabbi,” he always says) kulturkampf, interlaced with schmaltz, advice to the lovelorn and diatribing political monologues.

He's a champion of marriage between people of the same faith, same species, but different genders, of course.

He’s didactic and condescending and speaks in paragraphs--long paragraphs. Once syndicated, his talk show proved too boring for mass consumption, so now it’s vanity radio paid for by Toward Tradition.

Pacific Northwest goyim in general have little contact with Jews, especially religious ones, so listeners gush on-air and treat him like an exotic animal--sort of their pet Jew.

This man of god not only supports family values, faithfulness, integrity, and arranged marriages; but he's also for tax cuts, property rights, cuts for social programs, and capital punishment. He opposes promiscuity, abortion, homosexuality, welfare, crime, funding the arts, gun control, environmental regulations, and recycling.

He denies that poverty exists in the U.S.; and says Terri Schiavo’s death was "premeditated murder," and that Living Wills are suicide notes. To love your pets too much, by his lights, is unbiblical; and tattoos, birth control, piercing, abortions and assisted suicide are immorally equivalent.

Paid $165,000 a year by Toward Tradition according to a 2003 IRS filing, Lapin calls his Mercer Island organization a coalition of Jews and Christians formed to counter anti religious bigotry and preserve the social fabric. He is also co-chair of American Alliance of Jews and Christians, created with former GOP presidential also-ran Gary Bauer.

Its board of advisers includes Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Watergate conspirator Charles Colson, Abramoff, and Lapin's longtime friend and fellow radio talker Michael Medved.

He addressed the 1996 Republican Convention, after moving to the Seattle area and declaring personal bankruptcy after his Los Angeles investment company whose investors were his members of his synagogue went bust.

Click here for the blatherWatch opus: Rabbi Daniel Lapin, A Long Look Backward for the whole story on this troubling, divisive character.

Will the good rabbi apologize on his show, Sunday next? Probably not. Humility and contrition don't seem to be part of this religious zealot's psyche...but just in case, blatherWatch will be listening.

seattle arbitrons, doin' the hula for ratings: dori monson, kirby wilbur, john carlson, mike webb, mike siegel, carl jeffers, rabbi daniel lapin, bryan suits

Boyoboy, talk radio ratings are down across the board in Seattle and what to do? Local talkers have figured out some fanciful ways to perk up those sagging numbers...

rabbi daniel lapin, a long look backward

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, our hometown boy and Seattle talk radio connection to the broadening scandal around disgraced super lobbyist Jack Abramoff, keeps showing up in the media as the investigations unfold. 

BlatherWatch has found that controversy and troubled financial dealings have long been hallmarks of this Seattle area ultra-orthodox rabbi striving to be Rasputin to those with hands on the levers of government power.

The silver-tongued former South African buys his own radio time Sunday evenings (7-10p) from Entercom’s local KTTH. His talk show is a folksy, didactic kulturkampf, interlaced with schmaltz, advice to the lovelorn and diatribing political monologues. Once syndicated, it proved too boring for mass consumption, so now it’s vanity radio paid for by Lapin's nonprofit, Toward Tradition. 

Lapin, who NY Times columnist Frank Rich calls a “show rabbi” for the Christian right, actually introduced Abramoff to Delay, thus beginning the now notorious friendship between the born-again Christian up and coming in Republican leadership and the arch-orthodox Jew emerging as the go-to guy if you wanted to lobby the religious right after the Gingrich Gang took over Congress in 1994.

An ace self-promoter who used to be very accessible, Lapin isn’t returning blatherWatch’s calls nor any media inquiries these days as he keeps busting into national print and pixel counts across the blogosphere for his association with the notorious Abramoff.

Neocon talk-show host Michael Medved (KTTH m-f 12-3p) recently defended Abramoff to his syndicated talk-show audience, dismissing the controversy swirling around the embattled lobbyist. “He’s never been charged with anything,” he said, failing to mention that Abramoff is being investigated by the Senate, the House, the Justice Department, and a federal grand jury. Medved forgot to tell his audience about his own longtime friendship and association with the slimy Washington insider.

The latest layer is peeled back by veteran Seattle reporter Rick Anderson in next week’s Seattle Weekly. He details Lapin’s brother (LA business man/rabbi) David’s questionable involvement in the development of a sweatshop garment industry in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. protectorate west of Hawaii. Anderson writes: “Abramoff working for local political lobbying law firm Preston Gates helped stave off labor reforms threatened by the U.S. Congress.”  Read Anderson’s  “Meet the Lapin Brothers” here.

the rabbi with the tinfoil yarmulke (and we thought he was just boring...)

As Tom Delay’s chairmanship is chipped away by critics and prosecutors, we’re reminded how much water one of our local talk hosts, Rabbi Daniel Lapin (KTTH Sun. 7-10p) displaces in some of the shadier national Republican hog-wallows.

Two recent national press pieces underscored Lapin’s role in the breaking story that finds more Republicans each day peeling away from the mean, self-righteous, born-again loser. Some say only the power of prayer, or a deaf, dumb, blind (or well-paid) grand jury can save Delay.

You hear a lot of GOP meta-rada on the talking head shows about the innocence and ubiquity in Congress of Delay’s putting his family on his payroll. But what they’re not talking about is Delay’s mutually masturbatory relationship with sullied lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

He’s the gigantic tub of scum accused of--among many other things--bilking Indian tribes out of casino millions by promising to peddle his Congressional influence with the mighty Delay.

Who introduced Abramoff to Delay? Why, it was the jolly Mercer Island rabbi, Daniel Lapin. Abramoff is (or was) a boardmember of Lapin’s non-profit organization, Toward Traditon, as is, (or was) Michael Medved (KTTH, m-f, 12-3p). Another local connection: before his troubles, Abramoff worked as Seattle’s venerable law/lobbying firm, Preston Gates.

Frank Rich in Sunday’s (4-17) NY Times says he met the South African-born rabbi at a Christian Coalition convention in 1994.

He was regaling the crowd with scriptural passages proving that high taxes are "immoral." Now the show rabbi of the Christian right, Rabbi Lapin has moved on to bigger broadcast pulpits. When he's not preaching the virtues of "The Passion of the Christ," he is chastising "Meet the Fockers" for promoting "vile notions of Jews" that "are not too different from those used by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels." He apparently didn't like the idea that Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman played characters who enjoy sex.

Rabbi Lapin, according to Slate, is the networker who jump-started the mutually beneficial business relationship of Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay by introducing them in the early 90's. That was some mitzvah. As Marshall Wittmann, a former Christian Coalition lobbyist who later jumped to the Democratic Leadership Council, told me recently, "We now see the meaning of Judeo-Christian values."

The Slate piece by James Harding, Washington bureau chief of the Financial Times, enumerates some of the lower points in Abramoff’s career; from millionaire right-wing operative, to movie maker to high-rolling Washington lobbyist. Harding writes:

Abramoff's defining innovation on K Street—the Avenue of the Lobbyists—hasbeen to wear his political and business hats at the same time. He is an operator and also an ideologue.

F’rinstance: although the legalistic Orthodox Jewish values he allegedly espouses disapprove of gambling, Abramoff flacked tribal casino gambling concerns--even getting Indians an audience with President Bush. He charged outrageously inflated fees, even pressuring the tribes to donate to a right-wing think tank run by Grover Norquist, who’s apparently ethically impaired as well.

In the 1980's, he made the anti-Communist, potboiling action dud, "Red Scorpion" with Dolph Lundgren. There were protests when it was uncovered that Abramoff used extras and military equipment supplied by South Africa's racist right-wing government, then an outlaw state shunned by civilized nations.

Because Seattle is a small town, we’re usually proud when one of our own gets the national limelight. Frankly, the idea that the hyper-orthodox Lapin could ascend anywhere--except, perhaps, in the Hall of Fame of right-wing cartoons--seemed laughable.

We’d naively thought he was just a quaintly opinionated blowhard with the haughty accent of an Afrikaaner who’d done fill-in on KVI and KTTH and bought himself onto the radio in the weird off-hours usually reserved for secular infomercials for male performance supplements.

On-air he’s a folksy clergyman “(Everybody needs a rabbi,” he always says) who’s a bit of a yenta, a match-maker, and champion of marriage between people of the same faith, same species, but different genders; he’s didactic and condescending--and speaks in paragraphs--long paragraphs. Northwest goyim in general have little contact with Jews, especially religious ones, so listeners gush and treat him like an exotic animal--sort of their pet Jew.

Quaint opinions? we might mention his firm stance against recycling. Or his denial that any poverty in the U.S. exists. Or that Living Wills are suicide notes. Or that to love your pets is unBiblical. Or that tattoos, birth control, piercing, abortions and assisted suicide have immoral equivalency.

(I have to get off this my chest--it’s less conpiracy theory than conspiracy indulgence. But this is my blog, damn it, so here it is: Lapin doesn’t believe in birth control, and has 7 children (6 girls, 1 boy). Lapin is French for ‘rabbit’-- an animal who also doesn’t believe in birth control (nor restraint, I’m told). Is this a coincidence...or something more sinister? While we're entertaining unanswered questions: is it true that Lapin’s South African high school buddies called him “Danny Rabbit” for his rapid successes with the opposite sex? What do rabbis wear under their dark suits? What do rabbits wear under their dark suits? We’ll probably never know...)

During the Schiavo kerfuffle, when it seemed Delay was prevailing in his shocking Federal buttinskyism with his ham-handed tactics, Lapin crowed on-air warning liberals that their day in America was done.

Daniel Lapin is political activist as extreme as James Dobson. Rev. Ken Hutcherson, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Except for that Lord Jesus part, he’s in lock step with them. He’s their show rabbi, no more a benign sectarian clergyman than Jesse Jackson.

For years, he’s been kickin’ it with some of the most powerful and extreme conservatives in the country, some of whom are in power. For all the poo-pooing conservatives do about Hillary’s “vast rightwing conspiracy,” they do all seem to know each other. And if you think Lapin’s faith-based goofiness isn’t getting into policy makers ears these days, I’ve got a kibbutz on Mercer Island I wanna sell you.

no glee around here...

No Rush Limbaugh--liberals are not “gleeful” about the death of Terri Schiavo.

We have not  “gotten our wish,” that she be dead nor, as Big Pants accused, will we see this shameful event as freeing us up to work on “saving Scott Peterson,” the convicted killer at the locus of the last prurient 24/7 cable channel snore-orgy.

It’s not glee that fills my heart today, but relief. Relief that Terri Schiavo’s poor carcass will finally be put to rest.

Relief that her family, now useless to the political and media axe-grinders, ox-gorers and ideological opportunists, can simply be grieving husband, parents and siblings.

These shameful opportunistic ghouls propped up this woman like Frankenstein and used her body like a whore’s. It was top-down equal opportunity opportunism. 

President Bush: rushed back early to DC from Texas like Roy Rogers riding Trigger all night bringing the doc to the rancher’s dying wife. As usual from the faux Texan--it was all hat, no cattle--or, as Frank Rich wrote in the NY Times:

The same Mr. Bush who couldn't be bothered to interrupt his vacation during the darkening summer of  2001, not even when he received a briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to  Strike in U.S.," flew from his Crawford ranch to Washington to sign Congress's  Schiavo bill into law. The bill could have been flown to him in Texas, but his ceremonial arrival and departure by helicopter on the White House lawn allowed  him to showboat as if he had just landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Tom Delay: a moral midget with a heart of carnival glass and a meanstreak the width of the Rio Grande, needed a values-rich issue to change the subject from his disturbing and deepening ethics problems in Congress.

Dr. Bill Frist: is Senate Majority Leader, a heart surgeon, who stunningly made a grave neurological diagnosis of Schiavo from videos of her running relentlessly on Fox News. And oh yeah--he’s running for President.

Randall Terry: slithered out from under his rock to flack his pro-life point of view by spokespeeping for the parents. You’ll remember him as the anti-abortion media whore of Operation Rescue, repeatedly jailed in the ‘90’s for well-publicized attacks on abortion clinics. The clownish, homophobic, evangelical Christian needed press redemption after his IRS problems; his son’s very public coming out as a gay; and, according to the Washington Post, his censure by his Binghamton, NY church in 2000 for a  "pattern of repeated and sinful relationships and conversations with both single and married women." 

Sean Hannity: is always on the lookout for stories that he can give the appearance of controlling. With skillful earnestness, tiny Irish lips, deeply-felt smarm, great hair, and a lot of impressive sheeves of paper, he seemed to be in charge of the moral, legal, and family matters for the Schindlers. I almost felt sorry for MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough pitifully begging over the air to the Schindlers to talk to him. As a "friend of the family," Hannity had them exclusively, heartbreakingly, endlessly, tediously. The sad part is that Fox drove the so-called story that highjacked real news for the better part of two weeks.

Jesse Jackson: It was revolting to see the craven Jackson, and Hannity fellating each other in a circle of mutual self-promotion. He's usually Hannity's favorite example of liberal depravity, flawed black leadership. and here’s-what’s-wrong-with-the-Negros. Jackson, stranger to neither media whoring nor pimping, insinuated himself at the last minute into the Schiavo case sucking the air out of the room for the lifeless politicians and media suck-ups milling about hoping to get some juice from the circus. The Rev got his face in front of every camera; and in the end, gained nothing but some very temporary favor from the religious right.

The aforelisted excluded, there are many sincere people deceived into believing that this issue should be debated and decided by politicians and government.

Now maybe we can get back to tending to the real matters of state: the bloody war; the Bush attempt to kick the spokes out of Social Security; and whether breast enhancement should be allowed in the NFL.

The circus hasn't folded up its tents, yet. The mellerdrammer will continue as they deal with Terri Schiavo’s body over the next few days. The need for the Celebrity Death Channel will never have been so obvious. It’s an idea who’s time has come.

terri schiavo, rabbi lapin, birth control, and the horrors of tattoos

Listening to the longwinded Rabbi Daniel Lapin (KTTH Sun 7-10p) last night was informative about the actual agenda of the religious right and the  Republican Party.

(Wandering off the main road to explore the grubby by-ways of talk radio is frightening, yet intensely boring. Treading these dank interstices is what blatherWatch is willing to do for you, dear reader).

According to Lapin, the rabid Mercer Island rabbi, you can forget the legal blather about Terri Schiavo having to continue to take breaths in her hellish limbo because she didn’t make a Living Will.

(That’s a document that, if she’d had the forethought to draw up, would have spelled out what measures could or could not have been taken if she ended up in the state she’s in. Of course, being a vibrant  20 something at the time of her tragedy, she, like most of us, never made one).

No matter. To the hyper-orthodox Lapin and his orthodox Christian cohorts, Living Wills are for sinners. They say they're the same as suicide and should be just as illegal; as they wish abortions were. Assisted suicide, of course, is murder.

To them, your body is on loan from God and you must return it in the same condition as you got it. Terri Schiavo (or you, or me) have no right whatsoever messing with our own bodies other than to keep ‘em tuned up and lookin’ good-- presumably to attract a mate of the opposite sex. 

Making a Living Will, to the legalistic Lapin, is playing God--and even more amazing--so is birth control and tattoos!

He crowed last night about the new political power of the religious right and threatened extinction for Democrats for opposing Sunday’s grandstanding Congressional actions in the Schiavo case.

(It WAS impressive--we haven’t seen Congress move that fast since the last pay raise.)

Lapin isn’t just some kook crawling out of the polished woodwork of the moneyed Eastside suburbs.  He addressed the 1996 Republican Convention, and is a conservative of national standing who runs with conservative elites in the highest positions of power. He has a low profile locally, has done off-night and fill-in talk radio in Seattle on KVI, KKOL and now KTTH for years.

Veteran Seattle Weekly investigative reporter Rick Anderson wrote a revealing piece (“The Preston Gates Mates “ Seattle Weekly Feb.23 - Mar.1, 2005) about shady lobbyist Jack Abramoff, formerly of Seattle’s prestigious Preston Gates, who’s in over his Guccis in the shit of the Tom Delay Indian Casino/corporate “political giving and taking” scandal that’s fetching indictments in Texas and elsewhere.

What’s this got to do with Rabbi Lapin? Anderson says Lapin introduced Abramoff to Delay ten years ago.
   
“Abramoff also was a founder and chair of Toward Tradition, the nonprofit Mercer Island faith-based, right-wing political coalition run by Lapin...a GOP fund-raiser, and a native South African. Toward Tradition started in 1991 after Lapin moved here from California, where his then-followers included such Hollywood heavyweights as devout liberal Barbra Streisand. Paid $165,000 a year, according to a 2003 IRS filing, Lapin calls his Mercer Island organization a coalition of Jews and Christians formed to counter antireligious bigotry and preserve the social fabric. He is also co-chair of American Alliance of Jews and Christians, created with former GOP presidential also-ran Gary Bauer. Its board of advisers includes Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Watergate conspirator Charles Colson, Abramoff, and Lapin's longtime friend and fellow radio talker Michael Medved. Lapin did not respond to repeated phone calls and e-mails to him and his staff the past two weeks.”

The extreme positions taken by this jocular, gaseous, Sunday evening didact are not the rantings of someone that far out of the right wing mainstream.

While there’s nothing to indicate that Lapin and Toward Tradition have anything to do with the scandalous troubles of Abramoff and the pitbull House Majority Leader, Lapin’s associations are revealing--and he should be judged by the company he keeps.

We’ve witnessed a mighty flex of governmental power by Lapin’s friends. Last night, Tom Delay and his Congressional posse brought the extreme sectarian dogmas of Lapin, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Ken Hutcherson, Joe Fuiton et al, down from the ether of zealous rightwing wetdreams to the full-powered reality of Congressional boots on the ground.

The Southern-dominated Republican Party gets more arrogant everyday. They believe their populist success is not only because of their righteousness in God’s eyes, but also because of their on-going efforts to please the bottom feeders of the Bible Belt.

We used to discount right-wing religious activists because they were so far from getting a hold on power and they always overreached when they got a taste of it. We no longer have this luxury.

Please join me in a prayer for secular government, then get the hell out there and register a liberal!