February 9, 2006
>>
>>
>> Karen Rothmyer
>> Managing Editor
>> The Nation
>> Via E-Mail:
>>
>> To the Editor,
>>
>> Dr. James C. Dobson is hardly a close ally of disgraced lobbyist  
>> Jack Abramoff, despite the insinuations Max Blumenthal lays on  
>> Nation readers ["Abramoff's Evangelical Soldiers," Feb. 22].  
>> Abramoff's personal e-mails have led some people to believe that  
>> Dobson helped him defeat a tribal casino in Louisiana, but it's an  
>> empty boast--like a rooster taking credit for the sunrise. Dobson  
>> didn't do anyone's bidding.
>>
>> The fact is that gambling has been mentioned as a destructive  
>> force to families roughly 200 times on Focus on the Family radio  
>> broadcasts during the organization's 29-year history. So when we  
>> took action against Louisiana gambling expansion in 2002, it was a  
>> continuation of a long-established pattern. We used our own money,  
>> and Dobson had no contact with Abramoff and no knowledge of his  
>> activities.
>>
>> Focus on the Family is getting mentioned in the sad Abramoff story  
>> only because we quite coincidentally fought the same casino at the  
>> same time. Dobson needs no one's pressure to oppose gambling in  
>> all its forms, because he's motivated by only one thing: the  
>> desire to safeguard families from the crime, bankruptcy,  
>> corruption and divorce that proliferates whenever a casino comes  
>> to town. We did it because gambling destroys families. Why, or  
>> how, Jack Abramoff did it is a story we have no connection to.
>>
>>
>> Tom Minnery
>> Senior Vice President
>> Government and Public Policy Division
>> Focus on the Family
>> 8695 Explorer Dr.
>> Colorado Springs, CO 80920
>> 719-531-3400
>>
>> 217 Words