Photos of President Bush consorting with Republican influence-peddler Jack Abramoff are apparently making their way around official Washington these days, and from what it seems, it's unlikely that these are doctored photos a la the spread of John Kerry with Jane Fonda. Earlier this week, The Washingtonian reported having seen the photos. Now Time magazine has seen them, too, and in what is hopefully an omen of what is to come, Adam Zagorin and Mike Allen pen an extensive story on the photos.

As details poured out about the illegal and unseemly activities of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, White House officials sought to portray the scandal as a Capitol Hill affair with little relevance to them. Peppered for days with questions about Abramoff's visits to the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the now disgraced lobbyist had attended two huge holiday receptions and a few "staff-level meetings" that were not worth describing further. "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him," McClellan said.

The President's memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal--like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White House coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s.

As has been noted by many in the blogosphere, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has been stonewalling the press over questions about the relationship between Abramoff and the Bush administration. The major news outlets, to at least an extent, have been complicit in this overt coverup by failing to sufficiently publicize this White House activity.

Do not for one second forget that a high-ranking official in the Bush administration -- former chief procurement official David Safavian -- has already been indicted on charges related to his ties to Abramoff. With this in mind, it is simply unconscionable for the media to refrain from hammering the White House day in and day out until the details of all contacts between Abramoff and the Bush administration are published.

The Time article by Zagorin and Allen is particularly telling in one respect related to this inaction by the major media outlets: the confession that it will likely by a celebrity tabloid that will first publish the photos of Bush and Abramoff. Apparently, Time and the other insider publications and networks have given up, ceding responsibility for the real reporting on the story to The National Enquirer and other such rags. So much for the newly emboldened media...