Abramoff Buys Favorable Articles As Well

In addition to buying off members of Congress for their votes, Abramoff appears to have paid off writers in exchange for the writing of articles favorable to his clients.

Mr. Abramoff, who built a powerful lobbying business largely through his affluent Indian tribe clients in the late 1990's, paid Mr. Bandow during those years to advance the causes of such clients as the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

In one column in 2001, Mr. Bandow extolled the free-market system that had allowed the Marianas to thrive, saying that fighting terrorism was no excuse for "economic meddling" - the same position that Mr. Abramoff was being paid to advance.

The federal government "should respect the commonwealth's independent policies, which have allowed the islands to rise above the poverty evident elsewhere throughout Micronesia," Mr. Bandow wrote.

In an earlier column, in 1997, Mr. Bandow defended the gambling enterprise of the Choctaws. "There's certainly no evidence that Indian gambling operations harm the local community," he wrote.

We can see now for all the cries of "freedom" that we see coming from CATO that one form of freedom they obviously don't believe in is freedom of the press, for no press is free when it can be purchased.