As part of the federal investigation into Jack Abramoff, e-mails from 2001 surfaced which were written to Abramoff by Ralph Reed, longtime Republican operative and the Bush ‘04 campaign’s Southeast Regional Director. Abramoff at the time was working on behalf of casinos owned by Louisiana Indian tribes, which were concerned that Texas tribes were beginning to open casinos which would compete with them and drain away their gamblers. They wanted government action taken against the Texas casinos -- in sum, they wanted the Texas Government to shut down their competition -- and so they hired Abramoff to use his unparalleled influence with Republicans, especially Texas Republicans, in order to engineer the State Government action that they wanted.
In thinking about how to induce the Texas government to act against the Texas casinos, Abramoff realized that he could cynically exploit Christian conservatives in Texas -- who strongly oppose gambling on religious and moral grounds -- and use that religious opposition to gambling in order to help the Louisiana casinos who were paying him. The Christian conservatives both in Texas and nationally would be the dupes. They would think that they were crusading against gambling by demanding that the Texas casinos be shut down. In reality, the entire spectacle was a grand deceit which was about nothing other than working to serve the interests of the Louisiana casinos by attacking their competitors.
To implement this scheme, Abramoff turned to Ralph Reed, who has long been the most politically influential Christian conservative in the country. Ever since he left Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition in 1997, Reed has been in the business of getting paid to influence Christian conservatives to do whatever serves the political and financial interests of his clients. Reed was also a top advisor to the Bush campaign in 2000 and its Southeast Regional Director in 2004. Abramoff hired Reed and paid him to drum up religious opposition to the Texas casinos in order to protect the Louisiana casinos.
Reed went to work and, when he was done, the targeted Texas casinos ended up being shut down as a result of a lawsuit brought against them in the name of Texas by then-Attorney General Jon Cornyn. Thereafter, Reed claimed in one of his e-mails to Abramoff that all of that happened because Reed had arranged for a meeting between anti-gambling Christian activists and Cornyn where the activists would demand that Cornyn act against the Texas casinos. In that e-mail, Reed advised Abramoff that he had "choreographed" Cornyn’s response – i.e., that Reed had ensured that Cornyn would respond by taking action against the targeted Texas casinos:
In the Nov. 30, 2001, e-mail, Reed told Abramoff that 50 pastors led by Ed Young of Second Baptist Church in Houston would meet with Cornyn to urge him to shut down the Alabama-Coushatta tribe's casino near Livingston. He said Young would back up the request in writing.
We have also choreographed Cornyn's response. The AG will state that the law is clear, talk about how much he wants to avoid repetition of El Paso and pledge to take swift action to enforce the law," Reed wrote. "He will also personally hand Ed Young a letter that commits him to take action in Livingston."
As a result of these revelations, the moralizing Cornyn now has an obvious problem. Ralph Reed claims that Cornyn took action against the Texas casinos because Reed, acting on behalf of his casino clients, influenced him to do so. Reed says he "choreographed" Cornyn’s response. In order to save himself, Cornyn has now turned on Reed with an unrestrained viciousness. When asked yesterday by Tim Russert about this e-mail, Cornyn accused Reed -- who, in addition to being a top Bush campaign official also happens to be seeking the GOP nomination as Lt. Governor of Georgia -- of lying and "bilking" his clients:
MR. RUSSERT: Senator Cornyn, your name surfaced as receiving $1,000 from associates of Jack Abramoff. And Ralph Reed, an associate of Mr. Abramoff, was quoted as saying that he helped "choreograph" a response for you when you were attorney general towards a tribal problem. Will you give that money back?
SEN. CORNYN: Tim, it was a legal contribution. I don’t plan on giving it back, which is—you know, to listen to Chuck and to try to have it both ways and say this is a partisan issue—you know, Jack Abramoff and the people, his clients, made bipartisan contributions and through—as long as they’re legal and appropriately reported, I don’t see any reason to give them back. On the Reed e-mail—and this is not Harry Reid, but...
SEN. SCHUMER: R-E-E-D of the—yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition.
SEN. CORNYN: Exactly. Those e-mails came out three years after I, as attorney general of Texas, filed an injunction to enforce Texas law against casino gambling. We prevailed because the law was in our favor, and then after the fact, apparently, there were these e-mails I had no knowledge of where Reed and Abramoff were somehow claiming credit and then bilking their Indian clients for millions of dollars, apparently. And I certainly disapprove of that, did not know anything about it.
It is truly amazing to see top Bush Republicans, who have marched in almost absolute lock-stop with one another for five years, turn on each other this way. And these are not fringe Republicans.
Ralph Reed built the Christian Coalition and solidified the attachment of Christian conservatives to the Republican Party -- an attachment which, as Digby amply documented just yesterday, has been and continues to be a critically important cog in the Republican electoral machine. As Reed himself always makes clear, and Karl Rove agrees, these ties are a huge part of what put George Bush in office and gave Congress to the Republicans. Reed has long been at the center of national Republican politics along with his creator and mentor, Pat Robertson.
And Cornyn is no less influential. No Senator is a more loyal ally to George Bush. He was hand-picked by Karl Rove for his Senate seat and his election was a top priority for the White House:
On the Republican side of the Texas Senate race, Texas State Attorney General John Cornyn is the conservative, well-funded Bush ally with close ties to the business community. . . . .
The Cornyn campaign can also count on as much help from the White House as it will need, noted NACS' Director of Political Affairs Dan Mulvaney. Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney have already ventured to Texas for Cornyn fundraisers. "Having a large war chest is a crucial in a state with 19 media markets," said Mulvaney. "Cornyn is likely to maintain a substantial financial edge, thanks to this White House involvement."
Cornyn is blindly loyal to George Bush, and he obviously recognizes the danger he is in from this scandal. Sean-Paul Kelly, who blogs from Southwest Texas and guest hosts a radio show there, has been aggressively documenting the connection of the Abramoff story to Cornyn for some time. His excellent coverage of Cornyn’s involvement in this scandal has prompted rather thugish threats from Cornyn’s office against Kelly's radio station. Bush followers understand quite well the threat this story poses, which is why Cornyn put a knife in Reed’s back on national television yesterday.
I heard Charles Krauthammer on Brit Hume’s show yesterday snidely dismissing the importance of the Abramoff scandal generally, saying that he would be "shocked" if anyone even remembered this whole silly thing come November. Bill Kristol, Hume, and the always-compliant Mara Liasson and Juan Williams basically chortled in agreement, depicting this as nothing more than one bad guy, Abramoff, taking advantage of a corrupt though perfectly legal political culture which entails this sort of clever game-playing equally by both parties. And all of the insider-sophisticates know it and accept it. According to Krauthammer, objecting to this filthy system is nothing more than tiresome populist "grandstanding."
But that pretense of indifference to this scandal is laughable. The Abramoff scandal generally implicates almost every significant Republican political operative, along with many of the party’s highest political officials. And Cornyn’s statement on Meet the Press by itself is a huge story. He just accused the Religious Right’s most important figure, who was also a top Bush campaign official, of lying and defrauding his clients. Other than to hardened Beltway tools like Krauthammer – who think that their acceptance of deeply entrenched corruption is a sign of their elevated sophistication -- how can that not be a huge story?
More importantly, this entire Abramoff-Reed-Cornyn scheme demonstrates the completely cynical exploitation of Christian conservatives by a Republican political machine which pretends to be devoted to their agenda, but which has long just used them as ATM machines and ballot box stuffers.
Isn’t it time that Bush opponents at least make the effort to explain to citizens who identify as Christians that the Republican Party is not really working in their interests at all? Long manipulated by the likes of Ralph Reed -- who has made an enormous amount of money selling religious voters to the highest bidder -- these religious conservatives now ignore the issues which truly affect their lives because they have become convinced that the Bush movement is devoted to their core religious issues. But it isn’t. It exploits their religious agenda for its own sake while offering them only symbolic gestures and, as this Reed-Cornyn episode shows, it often works directly and secretly against their agenda.
Shaking loose the unwarranted devotion of religious conservatives to a Bush movement that couldn’t care less about their agenda is long past due. Howard Dean tried to make this point during the primary campaign - that religious conservatives are being manipulated into supporting a party that works against their interests - but the media and Dean’s opponents turned that effort into some stupid sideshow about Dean's supposedly offensive reference to "pick-up trucks" and Confederate flags and the issue faded away in a cloud of idiotic rancor. Subsequent efforts by Dean were met with ridicule, including from those in his own party. But the corrupt, secret work of Ralph Reed, John Cornyn and others to serve their Indian gaming masters while pretending to oppose gambling on moral grounds is the ideal tool to re-engage in that project.
So, too, incidentally, is the NSA scandal and the unlimited federal powers claimed by Bush. Religious conservatives have long been distrustful of federal power, which is what accounts for the discomfort which so many of them have with Bush’s lawless eavesdropping. It is what accounts for the notable opposition of Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, who is a True Believer and whose opposition to Bush on this issue should come as no surprise. His political positions are almost always driven by, from beginning to end, his religious agenda. If he takes a strong position, it is due to his religious-based viewpoints.
That is what explains his rather aggressive stance against Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program specifically and the powers of lawlessness claimed by the Administration generally. There has always been a strong "leave-me-alone" current running through religious conservatives in this country because they have always viewed a powerful Federal Government as a potential source of interference with their religious practices.
Much of the not insubstantial populist Christian anger over the Ruby Ridge and David Koresh attacks originated with this viewpoint, and while it has been precariously managed under Bush, it has not gone away. Emphasizing how much this Administration has expanded the powers of federal government - including its law enforcement domestic powers – is an independently potent tool for sowing real distrust and doubt among religious conservatives in George Bush’s Republican Party.
For some reason, Bush opponents cede so much to the Bush movement even though there is no reason to do so. There are lots of extremely compelling reasons why groups such as true Goldwater libertarian/conservatives and even religious conservatives should be alienated by George Bush and his followers. But these alliances are almost never challenged and Bush’s strategists are thus given free reign to solidify those allegiances at no cost.
What is ceded more than just these alliances are the basic rhetorical premises that Republicans have used to manipulate their supporters. When Republicans depict themselves as the party of resolute strength, Democrats try to say that they are kind of strong, too. When Republicans depict themselves as the party of religion and morality, Democrats try to say that they are sort of moral and religious, too. But there is no need to cede that ground to Republicans, especially Bush Republicans, because they are so plainly neither strong nor moral, at all. And nothing illustrates that better than the blatant manipulation of religious conservatives for profit and gain.
It is well past time to start articulating not just to liberals or liberal-leaners, but to those who have been supporting Bush as well, that the actions of his Administration and his followers do not advance their interests. They are not devoted to the ideals of small government conservatives or to religious conservatives. Quite the contrary. This Abramoff scandal, as well as the lawless expansion of the powers of the Federal Government, together offer the perfect opportunity for making this long overdue case.
Lots here to think about, but the idea that Bushites care about anything other than their own power has long been obvious. But Dems are so intimidated into thinking that they are hated by religious people and heartland types that they run away from them instead of exploiting that fact. We need to scream this loud and clear.
ReplyDeleteYour use of this indian stuff is interesting to make this point. If Ralph Reed of all people is screwing the religionists, who among Republicans isn't?
Excellent points. I hope the DLC and Joe Lieberman read this.
ReplyDeletebadgervan, don't count on it, but we can sure share it with our conservative friends, and maybe word will get around.
ReplyDeleteHoly Tom DeLay! Hard to say where the holy rolling hypocrisy starts and the steamrolling of demcocracy begins. Looks like two way traffic with a headon collision on K Street Or something.
ReplyDeleteAn almost endless string of liberal commentary could be made on conservatives who religiously had no reservations about gaming Indians in this Abramoff scandal, a scandal which people will say is limited to Abramoff. Oy.
There's also the distinct possiblity that the "gaming masters" aren't Indian at all, and that native Americans are being used by an organized criminal syndicate.
ReplyDeleteDean is rapidly becoming the most striking example in our time of the maxim that in politics the only thing worse than being wrong is being right too soon....
ReplyDeleteDean is rapidly becoming the most striking example in our time of the maxim that in politics the only thing worse than being wrong is being right too soon....
ReplyDeleteI couldn't sgree more - superbly stated.
Nothing shows more clearly how corrupt and easily manipulated our political dialogue is than the widespread perception -- including among political elites and pundits -- that Howard Dean is some sort of far left, ideologically rigid hippy peacenik.
The first time I heard Dean speak in 2002, he spoke about: (a) his opposition to the war in Iraq on the ground that it would make us militarily weaker and more distracted to fight Al Qaeda and other real threats and (b) how the principle of states' rights, aside from being central to the Founders' design, is how most of our intractable cultural disputes could and should be resolved, so that we can move beyond them as a nation and focus on what actually matters.
If anything, he is one of the very few major political figures we have who cannot be ideologically pigeon-holed. He sees and advocates things which very few other people see, which is why he is so easily caricatured and depicted as an escapee from the insane asylum. But he is right about so many things. Just go look at this pre-war statements about what would happen if we invaded Iraq and then compare them to the predictions of the pro-war advocates, and then let me know who has a better grasp of foreign policy.
The one thing that Democrats still need to learn from Dean, first and foremost, is to stand up and express their views without cowering in fear that someone may not like them. The fact that he did that so pugnaciously and apologetically, in 2002, when the entire country was cowering in some war-induced, Bush-revering intimidated climate, is a very powerful testament to his character.
apologetically = unapologetically.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, are you on drugs? How else could you spit out these extremely long, well-researched columns at the rate of one a day, if not more sometimes?
ReplyDeleteGreat post.
ReplyDeleteFor years I’ve been frustrated with my left-of-center friends who oppose George Bush, for the wrong reasons. (Bush is more one of them than they understand.) The notion that he is a theocrat is wildly mistaken, as are the fears that he will deliver all to the religious right.
Bush is an evangelical Xian, and that is usually (not invariably) a very distinct animal from a fundamentalist. Jimmy Carter is a devout evangelical, and he is quite leftist on many issues. When evangelicals do get involved in politics to control people, it is in areas like beverage alcohol prohibition, where they believe they must act to prevent great harm to humanity. Moreover, they can be liberal themselves on abortion or even gay rights. (Condi Rice and Laura Bush are both “pro-choice” evangelicals, and Harriet Miers at one time indicated she was that, as well as pretty feminist. I do not believe that Miers would have voted to overturn Roe, and Bush did not choose her for that purpose.)
Yes, there are evangelicals like Tim LaHaye and wife who, politically, seem indistinguishable from Jerry Falwell. But they do not, by any means, stand for all Xians who identify as evangelicals. Not all evangelicals are biblical literalists like LaHaye, which a fundamentalist is, by definition.
Bush is actually quite liberal fiscally and has done almost nothing to promote an anti-gay agenda. That is in keeping with the evangelicals’ belief that they are called to love everyone and to by example – not by hellfire and brimstone pontificating – bring them to Christ. Evangelicals formed a huge part of the 19th century’s abolitionist and suffragist base, and have a history of taking positions in opposition to “mean” institutions and beliefs. A jihad against gays suits many fundamentalists, but would not fit comfortably with the evangelical devotion to love and care of all human beings.
So, what I’m saying is, I believe George Bush is really religious, but not in any way that is mean-spirited or theocratic. When he says he is a “compassionate conservative,” he means he is a big government spender because he does advocate that the federal govt should be heavily involved in caring for people. William Jennings Bryan is remembered mostly for his opposition to evolution, but he was a pacifist and strongly favored unions and the “rights of the working man,” views heavily informed by his evangelical religious beliefs; he and George Bush would understand each other on much except war.
The railing against religionists from so many liberals and Democrats is utterly misguided, and yammering that evangelical Bush is a theocrat alienates them. I’m not really all that interested in helping Democrats understand how to secure evangelical votes, but one thing I’d suggest is to let go of the fixation on Roe v. Wade. Some evangelicals are pro-life, and identify the unborn as a human being in need of saving – a position much more conducive to their religious culture than marching to harm gay people. Remove that issue from the political stage, and many of those evangelicals who are pro-life might well go back to a party of entitlement spending and federal involvement to “help” people. (And even if Roe were overtuned tomorrow, the vast majority of states would nevertheless have legal abortion, at least in the first trimester.) Roe created the religious right as a political force, and is the sacred icon to be protected at all cost by many on the left.
Hence the political state in which we find ourselves and Abramoff and Reed’s ability to exploit it. Bush is not a conservative, and if the Democrats could figure out why he appeals to so many of his fellow evangelicals, they might win more elections.
he and George Bush would understand each other on much except war.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but this is a pretty fundamental point of divergence, if one pays attention to the Gospels.
For what it's worth, I don't think GWB is a fundamentalist theocrat. He's merely allowed Dominionists to provide political power for the Republican party. I don't think he actually believes that "God speaks through" him. I also don't believe that Jesus is his favorite philosopher. This is (in my opinion) merely pandering to win those same crucial votes that Ronald Reagan tapped into. This is one of the personal black marks against Reagan; he helped the camel's nose get into the tent. On the other hand, Reagan focused on optimism a great deal, rather than fear. President Bush, as Mr. Greenwald's earlier post on fear indicates, does not seem familiar with the idea that perfect love casts out fear. "Compassionate conservatism" also should not mean approving spending bills that cut Medicaid while extending capital gains tax cuts. Medicare Plan D presents a confusing plan whose primary beneficiaries are pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies, while causing the budget deficit to explode. This doesn't seem compassionate or conservative.
All that aside, I wish that evangelicals would wake up, and stop being played for fools. And that means by either party. Heck, the official doctrine of the Southern Baptist Convention still declares that "church and state should be separate." They used to be forbidden from relying on temporal power to achieve spiritual ends. Once Falwell, Kennedy, Robertson et al. got lots of them to abandon that, look what happened. Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff used the "wackos" (Scanlon's e-mail term) but good.
--mds
mds writes: Heck, the official doctrine of the Southern Baptist Convention still declares that "church and state should be separate." They used to be forbidden from relying on temporal power to achieve spiritual ends. Once Falwell, Kennedy, Robertson et al. got lots of them to abandon that, look what happened.
ReplyDeleteBut this was not initially brought about by any masterful political plotting. People who have little to do with conservatives do not understand what a bombshell Roe was for many, especially many religious people. Making abortion on demand legal, virtually until birth in every state, and doings so overnight, sent religious people in droves into the political process.
My mother was always interested in politics, but not at all an activist. The day Roe came down, I came home from school to see her kneeling on the floor and bent into the sofa, fervently praying a rosary. She was utterly distraught -- and this was not the sort of drama my mother typically engaged in.
The local newspaper saw an avalanche of letters to the editor, and my father eventually tired of my mother's obsessive declaiming on the subject, and told her to contact some of the other people writing to the paper and put her preoccupation to work. She did, and helped found a very significant political force in both our city and state -- along with many others who had previously not been very political. High on their agenda was a voter ID project, and the resulting mailing list was eagerly sought to be purchased by GOP politicians.
At that age, I totally agreed with Mom, and did not part company from the movement until most of them also added lobbying against gay people to the agenda, a position I have never held in my life. Opposition to Roe created the political base that is now in place to work against gays and to the benefit of the GOP that plays this base well. Roe is the gift that keeps on giving to that party.
People who have little to do with conservatives do not understand what a bombshell Roe was for many, especially many religious people.
ReplyDeleteYes, I too remember the breakout of "Impeach Earl Warren" banners amongst self-identified conservative religious folk, even years in advance of Roe, because it was only a matter of time. However, Roe did bring things to a head; the backlash against the left in 1974 was only matched by the backlash in 1976. Then Christian conservatives truly came into their own with the election of Ronald Reagan, the former abortion-friendly governor of California. Coopting that issue was behind the symbolism of Reagan kicking off his campaign in Philadelphia, MS, the site of the original Roe v. Wade case.
If we could get rid of Roe, much of the impetus of religious conservatives to empower modern Republicans would be sapped...or rather, channeled towards (1) imposing a federal abortion ban, and (2) as you note, moving on to use of evil homosexuality as a decades-long cause to cynically exploit for votes.
I'd sigh and wish for a return to the good old days of open competition in the marketplace of ideas between meaningful policy differences, but I've recently read more about Jefferson's whispering campaign against President Washington. Instead of pro- and anti-choice, we had pro- and anti-France. Oh, well.
--mds
I recommend this piece by an evangelical professor or law at Harvard. An excerpt:
ReplyDeleteHelping the poor is supposed to be the left's central commitment, going back to the days of FDR and the New Deal. In practice, the commitment has all but disappeared from national politics. Judging by the speeches of liberal Democratic politicians, what poor people need most is free abortions. Anti-poverty programs tend to help middle-class government employees; the poor end up with a few scraps from the table. Teachers' unions have a stranglehold on failed urban school systems, even though fixing those schools would be the best anti-poverty program imaginable.
I don't think my liberal Democratic professor friends like this state of affairs. And -- here's a news flash -- neither do most evangelicals, who regard helping the poor as both a passion and a spiritual obligation, not just a political preference. (This may be even more true of theologically conservative Catholics.) These men and women vote Republican not because they like the party's policy toward poverty -- cut taxes and hope for the best -- but because poverty isn't on the table anymore. In evangelical churches, elections are mostly about abortion. Neither party seems much concerned with giving a hand to those who most need it.
His insights, if understood and exploited by the Democrats, would not result in a political realignment I would even like -– and he is right, conservative Catholics voted Democratic overwhelmingly until Roe -- but Prof Stuntz is entirely accurate that it is possible, if Democrats understood evangelicals.
Judging by the speeches of liberal Democratic politicians, what poor people need most is free abortions.
ReplyDeleteI dunno, Hypatia -- anyone saying this with a straight face might as well tattoo 'Tool' on their forehead, Harvard faculty or no....
DXM, Prof Stuntz is really quite accurate about that; if you have followed the abortion wars since Roe, you would know that Democrats fought tooth and nail against the Hyde Amendment.
ReplyDeleteRalph Reed and Jack Abramoff used the "wackos" (Scanlon's e-mail term) but good.
ReplyDeleteLet's not forget to toss that into the masala while we're at it. And keep that food fight between Cornyn and Reed going as well. Woohoo, I love the smell of burning republican in the morning!
You sure about this?
ReplyDeleteMuch of the not insubstantial populist Christian anger over the Ruby Ridge and David Koresh attacks originated with this viewpoint, and while it has been precariously managed under Bush, it has not gone away. Emphasizing how much this Administration has expanded the powers of federal government - including its law enforcement domestic powers – is an independently potent tool for sowing real distrust and doubt among religious conservatives in George Bush’s Republican Party.
It cuts the other way, though, doesn't it? If I'm a Kristian Konservative, I want to make damn sure this overwhelming presidential power stays in the hands of Kristian Konservatives like W (or whoever the next lip-service-payer is) and away from Hillary (or whoever). "Our guys will use it to Save Murika from th' Islamist Terrists in the great battle of Armaggedon we're now involved in! Those guys will just use it to make the Bible illegal, put Kristians in concentration camps, and Stamp Out Christmas!"
I think that rightwing suspicion of gummint is highly skewed to suspicion of Democratic government. These guys are authoritarians--that's the whole flavor of their theology. Punishment for the unbelievers and us good people will get raptured. They WANT to have a dictatorship. It's just got to be a Kristian dictatorship.
Bush is actually quite liberal fiscally
ReplyDeleteWhat does that mean, exactly? I see nothing whatsoever "liberal" in the political sense about his economic policies.