Protecting Families and Children

You've got to appreciate the irony of Alabama Governor Bob Riley being connected to the U.S. Family Network.

After all, his trusted aide Dax Swatek (whose father Bill Swatek filed the fraudulent lawsuit that is at the heart of our Legal Schnauzer story) has been connected to an outfit called the Coalition to Protect Our Children.

Isn't it comforting to know that Teflon Bob and the Daxter are on the front line, protecting our women, chillun, and families? Makes you wonder how our country ever survived 200-plus years before our heroes came along.

So it's interesting to note that both the U.S. Family Network and the Coalition to Protect Our Children have ties to Jack Abramoff, perhaps the most disgraced lobbyist in Washington history. (And that's saying something!)

Teflon Bob wrote a letter on U.S. Family Network stationery, urging God-fearing Alabamians to oppose an effort by the Poarch Creek Indians to bring casino gambling to the state. Of course, Teflon Bob didn't tell his Alabama readers that the U.S. Family Network was essentially a front group for Jack Abramoff, who wanted Alabama gambling dollars to keep going to his clients, the Choctaw Indians in neighboring Mississippi.

And Scott Horton of Harper's reported that the Daxter's Coalition to Protect Our Children was a phony outfit designed to promote Channel One in Alabama school's. And Channel One was a client of whom? Why, Jack Abramoff, of course.

Are Teflon Bob and the Daxter really interested in protecting women, chillun, and families? Or are they interested mainly in money and power and doing pretty much whatever it takes to obtain both?

And here's a better question: Will the Alabama press ever awake from its slumber long enough to notice the connections Bob Riley and Dax Swatek have to one of the most scandalous figures in U.S. political history?