Corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, best known for ripping off American Indians and others, is sitting in jail in Maryland.

Here in Denver, the dailies, led by admirable reporting in The Denver Post, have run a series of articles raising questions about whether Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer has ties to the lobbying web of jailed Abramoff.

Was Schaffer doing Abramoff's bidding, either wittingly or unwittingly, in defending the immigration policies of the Marianas Islands that resulted in forced abortions and other worker abuse? ("Schaffer defends '99 trip," Rocky Mountain News, April 12.) Did he or his staff downplay these atrocities at the urging of Abramoff or his staff?

Schaffer has repeatedly told reporters he's never met Abramoff.

"I have had no contact with the individuals in the story, particularly Jack Abramoff," Schaffer told the Post on April 13. "It's a matter of fiction. That's all I'm going to say about it."

Under normal circumstances, a reporter would call up Abramoff and see what he has to say. Or they'd stake out his office. But the problem is, Abramoff isn't expected to emerge from jail any time soon.

Reporters are presumably trying to land an interview with Abramoff in jail anyway, but talking to him is a long shot at this point.

With an Abramoff interview unlikely, reporters should look for quotes from Abramoff that might shed light on the matter.

So I don't understand why the following widely known Abramoff quote, which is clearly relevant to Schaffer and is excerpted from a credible magazine article, hasn't appeared in the Denver dailies:

"Any important Republican who comes out and says they didn't know me is almost certainly lying," said Abramoff, as quoted by David Margolick in April 2006 Vanity Fair.

Margolick also quoted Abramoff as saying, "This is not an age when you can run away from facts. I had to deal with my records, and others will have to deal with theirs."

Post Managing Editor Gary Clark doesn't think the Abramoff quote above is necessarily relevant.

"Abramoff's statement about 'important Republicans' knowing him may be true, or it may be bragging," he e-mailed me. "It's a general statement and doesn't clearly establish that Abramoff specifically knew Schaffer, although Schaffer certainly seemed to be following Abramoff's strategy, as we've reported."

It's true that Abramoff's quote doesn't indict Schaffer, by any stretch, for the reasons Clark points out. And, to be fair, the quote came from a guy who's unambiguously corrupt.

But I still think readers deserve to hear what Abramoff has said in the past about matters relating to the Schaffer controversy.

If nothing else, Abramoff's quote should inspire reporters to tap their Washington sources to determine whether Schaffer or Schaffer's staff worked with Abramoff or his staff, even if Schaffer never met him.

What about, at least, telling us more about how Schaffer came to like the Marianas' abusive immigration policies so much and why.

There's more to the Abramoff-Schaffer story than we've seen in the dailies so far.

For retired librarians. I'm not sure my mother-in-law agrees with my column all the time, but I know this for a fact: She thinks I should spend much, much more time pointing out the grammatical blunders in the newspapers.

She's on me about this constantly. Did I see the split infinitive in the Post yesterday? What about the blasphemous use of "hopefully" at the beginning of that sentence on Page 23. What am I going to do about it?

Two weeks ago, she even found a grammatical error in my own column. Can you believe it?

I don't mean to belittle the importance of these errors. In fact, I support the correct use of English or Spanish in the newspaper.

And judging from the feedback I get, a lot of readers also hold high grammatical standards in a world that unfortunately seems to be in grammatical decline.

So, I think the dailies should hire someone to write a very short weekly column, maybe 150 words, about grammatical errors they spot in the newspaper, kind of like the Ask! Column in the Rocky's Spotlight section, but less frequent. I'm sure there's an eager audience for this.

And I know the perfect person for the job: My mother-in-law - a retired librarian, no less.

And you know what the best part would be? She'd start bugging reporters, and hopefully, she'd leave me alone. I mean, I hope she'd leave me alone.

Poorhouse, please. "I guess if you are used to making a 45 percent profit and now you're only making 20 or 30, it feels like you're in the poorhouse. But in some businesses that would still be pretty good."

- Bob Papper, media studies professor at Hofstra University, on declining profits and layoffs in the local TV news industry, quoted in the Baltimore Sun, April 3

Jason Salzman, president of Cause Communications and board chairman of Rocky Mountain Media Watch, is the author of Making the News: A Guide for Activists and Nonprofits. Reach him at salzmanj@RockyMountainNews.com.