PLAIN TALK: Jack Abramoff & Ariel Sharon

Last night while I was still at work, Channel 10’s Baruch Kra (who once worked for Haaretz) broke a story he’s been following for year’s that’s again captured the headlines here.

Kra reported that police have evidence that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took a $3 million bribe from Austrian businessman James Schlaff. It’s all tied to the Cyril Kern affair, violations of campaign finance limits, and Jericho Casinos... but don’t ask me precisely how it all ties together.

Everyone else in the media is now playing catch-up with Channel 10’s scoop.

As for the cops – they’re keeping shtum.

My hunch is that all things being equal (Sharon goes into the hospital tomorrow), this latest revelation will blow over and have minimal impact on Sharon’s anticipated margin of victory.

Yossi Verter in Haaretz gave spinmesiter Arthur Finkelstein the final word: “The public prefers a corrupt man to an idiot.”

Or several different idiots.

So my attention is drawn to real news and it comes from overseas.

I’m thinking about the tragedy of the miners in West Virginia and the pain of their families; about how their loves ones had been celebrating the “miracle” of their rescue only to have their gratitude turned into anguish when it emerged only one of the 12 trapped men had survived.

That’s real news – not the manufactured nonsense that fills so many of our newspapers and media outlets.

Elsewhere, I’m drawn to the reports of an extraordinary Chillul Hashem, what we Jews call – a desecration of God’s name – committed by an Orthodox Jew named Jay Ambramof.

He’s the Washington lobbyist who pleaded guilty to three felony counts in connection with Washington influence peddling.

Yet I wonder if it is news that people who think of themselves as pious observant Jews would nevertheless conspire to commit fraud, evade taxes use power unrestrained by ethical concerns.

No. The real news today is not Sharon and not Ambramof.

It’s the pain of the families who lost their loved ones in the mines of West Virginia. That’s what is real and enduring.

God give them strength to handle their pain and loss.