Via Huffington Post, h/t commentor Yutsano:
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Ralph Reed would be this guy:
… To recap, Ralph Reed worked for team Abramoff by mobilizing Christians opposed to gambling to shutter casinos. The only hitch: Reed was usually paid by other casinos who had a financial interest in eliminating their competitors. Therefore, Abramoff needed to find a way to make Reed comfortable, and to protect him against critics and the likely fury of his own Christian followers–who might have been upset if they had discovered that Reed was being paid by gamblers to do their bidding. The solution: Abramoff laundered the Indian casino payoffs to Reed by routing them through other organizations, including Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform and a phony “think tank” in Rehoboth Beach, MD, run by a life guard and a yoga instructor who were friends of Abramoff’s pal, Mike Scanlon. Details of this can be found in my film, Casino Jack and the United States of Money. …
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Reed correctly notes that he has never been charged with a crime and implies that he had been fully investigated by John McCain’s Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. But the implication is deceptive. According to one very famous, disgraced former lobbyist, Reed was supposed to have been called before McCain’s committee but Karl Rove intervened and pressured McCain not to call Reed. (Reed was an enormously powerful fund-raiser for the Republican Party.)…
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This leads to another intriguing part of the radio interview. Reed tries to downplay a famous statement of his: “I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don’t know it’s over until you’re in a body bag.” He says it was just youthful hyperbole….
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My emphasis. When it comes to Republicans, it’s always about projection. Reed’s got a long history of godbotherer-grifting and ratfvcking for the GOP:
… The field of Christian groups is far more crowded today than in was in the late 1980s, when Pat Robertson asked Mr. Reed, then 27 and known for his work with college Republicans, to build the Christian Coalition. Mr. Reed toned down the brimstone rhetoric and established the most elaborate network of evangelical voters yet, and was lionized when conservatives swept into local and national offices in 1994.
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In 1997, he left the Christian Coalition, which soon faltered, and formed his consulting group in Atlanta called Century Strategies, with corporate clients like Enron and Microsoft. Yet his reputation as a political strategist only grew during stints as chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and in President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign.
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Mr. Reed’s try for lieutenant governor was seen as a possible steppingstone, but as details of his business operations emerged, Georgia Republicans turned on him, calling him a hypocrite and an albatross on the slate. E-mails released by a Senate committee painted him as too hungry for money and as trying to conceal that his lobbying against new Indian casinos was paid for by tribes protecting their own lucrative casinos…
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Mr. Reed has continued his business consulting but in 2009, with the help of donors whose names he will not disclose, he formed the Faith and Freedom Coalition. (He also fulfilled a teenage dream by publishing two Washington potboilers, with a third coming out next fall.)
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Mr. Reed describes the coalition as something of a reluctant call to duty, but also concedes that he enjoys being back in the thick of politics. He is staying neutral through the primaries but says he talks with some of the candidates and that he was called for advice by Mr. Trump. “I rolled out of bed after the 2008 election and I was devastated by the outcome and how it came about,” is his official explanation for his return to the fray. “We were badly out-hustled on the ground.”
I suspect our resident expert Dennis G. will have much more to say about Mr. Reed. But the video seems to be getting a lot of attention, and now you can have your defenses ready when your wingnut acquaintances blast-email everyone.
Little Boots
damn, is everyone awake all night?
Little Boots
who can still take this bitch seriously?
Little Boots
great, it’s just me.
Okay, fine.
Yutsano
I blush AL. But yeah, that about had me disgusted to no end.
@Little Boots: Pardon?
Little Boots
well, just cause it would prolly annoy him, if he were here:
coldplay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvgZkm1xWPE
yes, deal with it, Omnes, if you were here.
Little Boots
hey, Anne. you do good work. I just have this whole Omnes thing going on.
oh nevermind, carry on.
Little Boots
@Yutsano:
meaning Ralph, not Anne, I hope that’s understood.
Little Boots
I hate that I can’t abuse Omnes with Monkees. where is Omnes?
Yutsano
@Little Boots: The clarification is appreciated.
Jager
I love it when guys like Reed talk tough, projection is right! I worked with an ex Special Forces officer on a consulting project. One of the client’s staff guys, was always talking about kicking ass and taking names, fucking people up, etc. We were on a marketing project, not going to war. We were out to dinner one night, had a cocktail or two and the guy starts his kick ass talk and the former green beret gets up in his face and says, very quietly, “have you ever kicked anybody’s ass,I mean really hammered some poor bastard until they are bloody, crying and covered in snot, I mean have you ever put anybody in the fucking hospital?” “Because if you are in the mood to really get it tonight, lets you and I pick out the two biggest motherfuckers in this bar and have some fun!” The Ralph Reed type drained his drink and left.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Apparently the power is out chez Cole, and he is having a Twitter-palooza he may regret later.
Little Boots
Cole’s crazy.
but I like him.
Sargent Pepper's Spray
That’s some pretty fine projection there!
“When you can’t run on the economy and when you can’t run on foreign policy…”, well that there son is the GOP’s problem in a nutshell. They can’t really run on either. They left Obama a shitload of a mess and it has turned out that roughly 9 months from the election, he’s been doing a pretty damn good job of cleaning it up.
Hence they’ll run on character attacks, which works great on someone trying to become President for the first time, but when you’ve been in office 4 years and damn near 100% scandal free, that’s a little harder task to pull off.
Gex
Amazing the kind of evil you can sell if you slap the Christian label on it.
Narcissus
Worst way to come.
a.j.
Anyone know if there’s a transcript anywhere?
I honestly can’t watch these assholes on video anymore.
I always regret it. Always.
ozexpat
OK…I don’t live in the states anymore so there is little i can do beyond make phone calls, send emails and donate money…all of which i do.
But Ralph Reed now in the mix? I will do whatever it takes to take him down. I realise that makes it sound that i wasn’t committed prior to this but I did think that we were winning.
Now that i know that they are engaging the lowest of the low in this battle — then i know we can’t win unless we throw everything at it.
What do we do next?
Linda Featheringill
Ralph Reed is scary.
I have often been thankful that he didn’t have enough actual power to have his own armed forces.
It’s probably not fair that such a creep has so much influence but still that’s better than having real power.
Raven
My tenant is working on his PhD in Poli Sci at UGA on a Ralph Reed scholarship!
AxelFoley
@Sargent Pepper’s Spray:
Bingo.
gnomedad
Is this better or worse than being the Antichrist? So hard to keep up.
gelfling545
@gnomedad: True. Perhaps someone could work out a scale of evilness.
frogspawn
Nice article, but Rehoboth Beach is in Delaware, not Maryland.
WereBear
In part because evangelicals, f`ar
WereBear
In part because evangelicals, far from being Christian, have the critical thinking skills nullified by the Death Cult and cannot make any decisions of their own.
(cat interference)
Zifnab25
You know, there was another President who held a similar “Take No Prisoners Attitude”. George Washington.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iqhsot3mk7Q
rikyrah
if Reed were BLACK and had done what he’d done, he’d STILL be serving 10-15 for fraud.
Bobbo
Really, am I the only one who wishes Obama were as ruthless as Reed pretends? Y’know, an LBJ for our time?
Paul in KY
He oughta get in films. Could play the Antichrist.