This particular man of God, vaunted for his scholarly understanding of the Bible and his apologetics for Christian fundamentalism, turns out to have served as a money launderer and fraudster for Abramoff. He was paid by Abramoff's bogus Washington charity, the Capital Athletic Foundation, which passed money along to the wife of California Rep. John Doolittle, among other dubious "charitable" payments. Lapin's own peculiar "religious charity," Toward Tradition, took in thousands of dollars from an online gambling firm, which it then passed along to the wife of DeLay staffer Tony Rudy.
Abramoff showered money on Lapin and his family, and the right-wing rabbi was not ungrateful. When the ambitious lobbyist needed to embellish his curriculum vitae to impress the overseers of the prestigious Cosmos Club in Washington, Lapin gladly furnished him with fake awards attesting to his religious scholarship.
"I just need to know what needs to be produced ... letters? Plaques? Neither?" he asked in an e-mail to Abramoff.
"Probably just a few clever titles of awards, dates and that's it," the lobbyist replied. "As long as you are 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?"
What Lapin ultimately bestowed on his benefactor was a backdated award from Toward Tradition, the group he founded to restore morality in America. It named Abramoff a "Scholar of Biblical and American History."
Nice. Fake awards. I think there is something in the Bible about lying. And what about Tom Delay? I have suggested that anyone who admires him for his Christian faith needs to really rethink what that means.
Not many politicians have been as bold as DeLay in publicly claiming the mandate of heaven. Who can forget his justification for pushing the impeachment of Bill Clinton, whom he accused of having the "wrong worldview"? While the Hammer cavorted on Scottish golf courses and gorged himself on Malaysian banquets, he was assuring the faithful on Capitol Hill that the Almighty had chosen him for leadership and was teaching him how to do his job.
Yeah. Great. If God is teaching this guy how to do his job, then we worship a Mafia boss.
As Conason says, "Perhaps it is worth expressing a small hope that the good religious people of this country will rise up in outrage against the abuse of their faith by all these pious hypocrites."
Perhaps. I will believe it when I see it.
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