Black Hatter Jack is writing Torah commentary - Frank Rich in the New York Times

Frank Rich asks in today's NY Times, Is Abramoff the New Monica? - New York Times. He muses first with his characteristic smirk about the widespread political implications of the scandal, such as:

This much is certain: 1) The Abramoff scandal, so far anyway, boasts plenty of cigars but no sex. 2) It has almost everything else, including the "Miami Vice"-style rub-out of a Florida casino-cruise-ship mogul who'd had contentious business dealings with Mr. Abramoff. Not without reason is the White House on a frantic search-and-destroy mission to root out any potential embarrassments. Mr. Bush's expert stage managers are smart enough to know that this scandal may metastasize from a cancer on Congress to a cancer on the Republican Party in general and this presidency in particular.

More than a Minyan of Black Hats in Congress
Barry Blitt in today's NY Times

He concludes his column with the requisite references to the religious hypocrisy of this chapter of corruption. Here he includes the revelation that Black Hatter Jack is writing a Torah commentary:

As fate would have it, the court appearances of Mr. Lay, Mr. DeLay, Jeff Skilling, Mr. Safavian and Mr. Abramoff could all overlap on 24/7 cable in the months ahead. There will surely be much talk of God along the way. Mr. DeLay's pastor, Mr. Buckham, and Mr. Reed were not the only prayerful players in the Abramoff casino. So were the Rev. 'Lucky Louie' Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition and the right-wing Rabbi Daniel Lapin, whose Toward Tradition organization received a $25,000 check (in all innocence, we're told) from the Abramoff client eLottery. In 2002, the good rabbi welcomed the lobbyist onto the board of his American Alliance of Jews and Christians, along with Jerry Falwell and the man who loves Israel literally to death, Pat Robertson.

In between Mr. Abramoff's guilty pleas in Washington and Florida, he let it be known that he was busy writing Torah commentary. What is the inspiration for all this religiosity? Though raised by an unobservant family, Mr. Abramoff has said that he resolved to become an Orthodox Jew at the age of 12 after seeing 'Fiddler on the Roof.' Now that he's ratting on all his cronies to reduce his own sentence, they, too, will learn what it means to journey from the vainglorious fantasies of 'If I Were a Rich Man' to the hard time of 'Sunrise, Sunset.'

Have you no shame Mr. Abramoff? Have you no sense of decency?

Turning the page in the Times we come to Nicholar Kristoff writing about how one Woman in India had the guts to stand up to the gangsters who were terrorizing her village. In the essay, In India, One Woman's Stand Says 'Enough', Kristoff means for us to learn that one woman's education enabled her to know how to resist evil. Together with the other women in her town, she struck a fatal blow against the criminal element that had ruined their lives.

I see this brave incident as a parable of how we all need to band together to fight the evil in our midst.