He's done, says the WashBlade after this great piece yesterday on the frontpage of the WashPost: "How a Lobbyist Stacked the Deck: Abramoff Used DeLay Aide, Attacks On Allies to Defeat Anti-Gambling Bill."
Read it to see how gambling $$$ were funneled to Ralph "Never $aw a buck I didn't like" Reed, in order defeat an anti-gambling bill. Included: an very cool 'cash flow' diagram.
I recall Reed's $elf-serving and manipulative denial given to me earlier (which mentioned media bias as a prime culprit).
Reed should've apologized long ago to Jack Newfield of The Nation for slandering him. Sadly, Newfield passed away shortly after Reed's denial, and Reed shows no sign of repenting anyway.
The Blade may be exaggerating the impact of the story on Reed's campaign, however. Reed's conservative Christian base will be easily manipulated with phraseology like "media bias," the liberal media is attacking me, and so on. They will take that on faith, rather than investigating the charges.
Losers in this: rank & file evangelicals whose blind faith in leaders is nowhere sanctioned in the Bible, yet avidly practiced especially in political matters, and ardently manipulated by the unscrupulous.
Update 2/1:
Welcome ConWebWatch readers! I wanted to add a note on Mr. Krepel's interesting analysis. Krepel writes:
"WND ran to the defense of another conservative activist, Ralph Reed; a July 2004 article by Sherrie Gossett gave Reed a forum to deny charges made by the "leftist publication" The Nation that Reed "had been secretly taking funds from one Indian tribe with a casino monopoly as payment to launch a moral crusade against a competitive tribe that wanted to start up its own casino."
Unfortunately, this is editorializing on the part of Mr. Krepel. I wrote the article not to "run to the defense" of Reed, but precisely because I found The Nation's reporting to be compelling and significant, and the bulk of the article is made up of those allegations. I also told this to Newfield in a phone call after the article. (I found out he didn't get my request for comment until after the article came out.) When some were disappointed in what I reported, Newfield quipped "They thought you were in the same zip code."
I was disappointed in some knee-jerk reaction I got to the letter insisting Reed could have done no wrong.
Also, the article notes I pressed for an interview with Reed. That was for a reason. It's much harder for an interview subject to wiggle out of a proverbial corner, if you interview them, and do it live. Not by email. Also-I need to double check this- but I'm fairly certain I did not refer to The Nation as a "leftist" publication. I believe that was an editorial add. I mention that just so citizen media critics pause to think first: "Did the reporter write this? Or was it an editorial add?" That said, I don't think it's a big issue. A call to the reporter is a better way to get reliable data, versus assumptions.
I did try to find more on Reed, but turned up nothing. After the WaPo broke more info, I called Reed's firm back to press them on what they had told me. I was told they were at the GOP convention. I called Few's cell but got no response back. Had I obtained any of the data the WaPo, as well as the Nation and Montgomery newspapers had turned up, I would've been in a rush to publish before getting 'scooped.' (The Montgomery press had very interesting info on the negative consequences of the Christian Coalition essentially doing the gambling/lobbying group's bidding.)
