Since the guilty plea of Jack Abramoff there has been a lot of back and forth
discussion in the White House Press room regarding the President’s acquaintances
with Abramoff. Scott McClellan has tried hard to deny any such meetings yet
reporters like David Gregory have been hard to fire back and try to get answers.

One of McClellans’s defenses has been there are no photos of Bush and
Abramoff together. Yesterday that defense seemed to have some holes in it when

Washontonian reported they had scene photos of the two together:

If the White House can’t find the photos, prosecutors already know where
to look. The Washingtonian has seen five photos of the President with
Abramoff or his family. One photo shows the President and Abramoff shaking
hands at a meeting in the Old Executive Office Building, where a
bearded-Abramoff introduced Bush to several of the lobbyist’s
native-American clients.

View complete article
here.

That article did not get much attention yesterday because it wasn’t reported
on by the mainstream media. Well today that changes.
Time
magazine is now reporting that the photos do exist:

The President’s memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen
five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of
contact between them that Bush’s aides have downplayed. While TIME’s source
refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the
light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for
them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team’s for the past several
months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become
the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning
corruption scandal—like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White House
coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s.

View complete article
here.

So now we wait for another week of questioning for Scott McClellan and see
how he tries to avoid giving answers to reporters and the American people. Next
thing his go to reply will be “we will not comment on an ongoing investigation”.
Well silence is golden and I hope he does take to that defense because America
is not stupid and the voters will realize the President is once again lying.
This might be a nice bit of help for the Democrats come November. We need a
Congress who will enforce its power of oversight of the executive branch.