The poll found that 56 percent of the public disapproved of the way Bush is handling ethics in government, up seven percentage points in the past five weeks. An equally large majority says the type of wrongdoing admitted by Abramoff is "widespread" in Washington.

Today's Washington Post editorial tells readers that the photograph issue is little more than a distraction.

the focus on the photos distracts from a more important question that the president managed to duck in his news conference Thursday: Who in the White House and administration met with Mr. Abramoff, and what were those meetings about?

....The president himself attended a White House meeting with some of Mr. Abramoff's clients. How did that get set up? The White House acknowledges that Mr. Abramoff had some "staff-level meetings" there. With whom, and about what?

Republicans didn't tolerate this kind of behavior from the Clinton White House in the midst of its fundraising scandal. "At every turn, they are stonewalling, covering up and hiding," Haley Barbour, then the head of the Republican National Committee, said as the Clinton administration tried to brush off questions about its fundraising before the 1996 election. ....Such obstructionism is no more acceptable now.

The issue of the photographs showing Bush and Abramoff together is important too. A photograph showing the two engaged in casual conversation at other than an official function would mean Bush lied when he said:

I don't know him. ... I've never sat down with him and had a discussion with the guy."

Next, if as Josh Marshall first wrote, the White House may have ordered the photos scrubbed from the computers of the Reflections Photography, a company who shot many of the photos of White House events, that's an act the American public should know about.

There are many ties between the White House and Abramoff.

....two former Abramoff associates landed jobs in the Bush administration. Patrick Pizzella is an assistant labor secretary, and David Safavian was the White House's chief procurement officer until he resigned shortly before being indicted in connection with the Abramoff investigation.

Susan Ralston, secretary to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, was Abramoff's secretary before going to work for Rove.

Bush can't hide forever on this. The more he tries to obscure the connection, the worse it will look when people like Safavian and Ralston flip. And if those two don't, others will. Most will hustle to tell the Government's truth once their hide is on the line. That's the altar of purchased testimony, testimony that is bought with promises of leniency rather than money.

[Graphic created exclusively for TalkLeft by CL.]