Ralph Reed Is a Liar

Amplify’d from www.theatlantic.com

Let's say it plain: Ralph Reed is a liar.

On a recent radio show -- highlighted by a blog from People for the American Way -- Ralph Reed was chatting about his halcyon days as part of Jack Abramoff's lobbying machine. He recalled that his work with "Casino Jack," the once and famous king of K Street "was outstanding, I'm proud of it, and it advanced sound public policy."

God Bless. What would that policy be? The legalized bribery of government officials?

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."

Let's be clear: there was probably nothing illegal about what Reed did. But he was engaged in a kind of spiritual fraud: telling his supporters that he was opposed to gambling when, in fact, gambling was making him rich. Read more at www.theatlantic.com

 

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