Intelligent Discontent

• Written by: DanOctober 23rd, 2005
• Comments:3 Comments
• Category:The Media, US Politics
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Just when you thought the web of corruption couldn’t get any thicker, leave it to TIME magazine to point out one more strand. And as far as strands go, this may end up being the very center of the web. TIME is reporting that even the very well connected Abramoff needed help when he wanted to ensure the ear of the highest levels of the US government. Who did he turn to? That man was none other than former Christian Coalition leader Ralph “Right Hand of God” Reed. Now this may not be totally new, but what is new is that TIME has obtained their email correspondence, and it is amusing for the sheer familiarity with which the two address each other; one would think that the messages were the IMs of two particularly vapid adolescent girls, like whatev’s And it would be particularly amusing if it wasn’t for the realization that their relationship has been constantly corrupting the democratic process.

Ten days after 9/11, for instance, Abramoff was promoting a business venture to rent cruise ships to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to billet rescue workers off New York City. Reed assured Abramoff he had “put in a tag call to Karl to find out the best contact at FEMA.”
Four months later, Abramoff wrote Reed that he needed some “serious swat from Karl” to get the Justice Department to free $16.3 million for a jail that his Choctaw Indian clients were planning to build in Mississippi. As it happened, Abramoff had caught Reed at a ripe moment. “Am at a lunch with Rove at the [Republican National Committee] meeting and just talked to the AG [John Ashcroft],” he e-mailed Abramoff on his BlackBerry. “Will report the substance shortly.” Reed agreed to give Rove materials arguing the Choctaws’ case.

There are a few of things that make the revelation of this relationship especially damaging. First, Reed was a campaign strategist for and favorite of President Bush, and had frequent contact with the highest levels of the government, including most notably Karl Rove and John Ashcroft. Second, as far as mutually beneficial relationships of convenience go this one was very genial; Abramoff and Reed’s contacts are being described as “eager” and “obliging” and their contact goes back to the early 1980s where they were buddies in the College Republican national leadership. And third, this relationship threatens the Republican leadership because it draws a lot of strands together. Now we have a single web that seems to implicate Abramoff, Rove, Reed, Delay, and a number of other high level officials. I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if it came out that Frist contacted Abramoff to have Reed use his contacts to arrange to launder the money he got from the sale of his family’s company’s stock in his “blind” trust through a no-bid Haliburton contract to tap the last of the world’s petroleum reserves in the grand scheme of strengthening the case for Intelligent Design.
One of their more interesting exchanges:

In December 2001 the lobbyist was eager to prevent Angela Williams from being appointed head of the Interior Department’s Office of Insular Affairs, which oversees the government’s dealings with the Northern Mariana Islands, an important Abramoff client. Williams is married to former Federal Trade Commissioner Orson Swindle, who was a Vietnam pow with Senator John McCain. The subject header of Abramoff and Reed’s e-mail exchange (it is unclear who initiated it) contained a misstatement about Williams that is practically Freudian in what it reveals about their animosity toward McCain: “Were you able to whack McCain’s wife yet?” Reed assured Abramoff he had “weighed in heavily” with the White House personnel office to block her appointment but had received no commitment. “Any ideas on how we can make sure she does not get it?” Abramoff asked. “Can you ping Karl on this? I can’t believe they just don’t get this done?” Reed replied, “I am seeing him tomorrow at the WH and plan to discuss it with him as well.” Baron says, “Ralph passed the information on to the White House. He is confident the Administration’s decision was based on the merit.” As for Rove, White House spokeswoman Erin Healy tells TIME, “It is my understanding that Mr. Rove does not recall any of these incidents.”

Or this cute little exchange:

When Abramoff pleaded by e-mail in February 2003 for her [Susan Ralston, former assistant to Reed and current assistant to Karl Rove] to help arrange a “quiet message” from Rove to the Interior Department on behalf of a tribal client, Ralston rebuffed him: “Karl and others are aware, but the WH is not going to get involved.” So Abramoff sent a copy of Ralston’s curt e-mail to Reed, who replied, “this is ridiculous. want any help …?”

I am betting that Reed is really wishing that his email correspondence hadn’t been made public for two reasons: first, because it implicates him and a lot of others in a massive government/corporate conspiracy the likes of which have never before been paralleled, and second and more importantly, it makes him seem a little pubescent which can’t be good for his street cred’ with his Christian Coalition peeps.