ABRAMOFF: Rove, Reed and the Money Machine
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| God and gambling has been good for this Georgian. |
The semi-conventional wisdom here is as
follows: Some Democrats are likely to be stained by ties to Jack Abramoff; polls
show that the public has a plague-on-both-your-houses attitude toward wrongdoing
in Washington; therefore, the GOP won’t be hurt in November. I don’t
buy it. Republicans are the incumbent party in the Congress. They are led by
a less-than-popular president in the traditionally weak sixth year of his presidency.
… The Bush-Rove White House: No one is alleging,
and I think it is unlikely, that Boy Genius Karl Rove knew in any detail what
kind of crook Abramoff really was. On the other hand, Rove was, and
in remains — unless he is indicted in the Plame case, the puppet master
of Republican Washington. He shares operational and attitudinal roots with Abramoff
and the other hustlers in the baby boomer generation of Republican strategists.
Over the years, as Rove has needed to “move” legislation —
and make no mistake, he has been the guy guiding that process — he has
called on the entire GOP lobbying establishment in D.C. to help. The process
of building that machinery began long before Rove came to town with Bush. DeLay,
Abramoff, Grover Norquist and others began assembling it after the GOP took
the House in 1994, demanding that corporate types hire Republicans — and
not just any Republicans, THEIR Republicans. Rove then took command of that
vehicle when he moved to the White House in 2001. Rove will have a hard time
claiming now that he didn’t know how the machinery worked, especially
since Abramoff himself became a major contributor to Bush’s re-election
campaign. Winners
and losers in the Abramoff scandal
Karl Rove is still the “puppet master” of all things
Republican, Howard Fineman is right. As we've been talking about since this
thing broke wide open this week. The entire Republican machine put the Abramoff
wheels in motion, starting with Karl Rove & Co. way back in 1994, when the
Gingrich revolution rolled into Washington. It was that machine that
fanned out across the country, in every town and city and state in America.
The Republican tentacles of Rove's machine went out far and wide, to grab every
single power broker they could, including a guy who wants to be king himself,
Ralph Reed.
No one outside Karl Rove is more responsible for George W. Bush's
rise in the south than former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed, who is now
running for lieutenant governor of Georgia. However, he's got some problems
coming his way, which started to float to the top a long time ago.
Ralph Reed, a Republican candidate for
lieutenant governor in Georgia, recently acknowledged that an Indian tribe
with a casino in Mississippi was a source for $1.15 million that Reed helped
send to two anti-gambling campaigns in Alabama in 1999 and 2000. Giles' Christian
Coalition received $850,000 after Reed, a political strategist, gave assurances
that the money was not derived from gambling.Reed has also said through a spokeswoman that Jack
Abramoff, a close friend and Washington lobbyist for Indian tribes with casinos,
and who is now the subject of several federal investigations, acted as an
intermediary for much of the cash.In Alabama, the information put flesh to rumors of
a gamblers-and-the-godly alliance that had wafted through the state Capitol
— even before voters rejected a HOPE-style lottery in 1999 pushed by
the newly elected governor, Don Siegelman.“Somebody's lying. It's either John Giles or Ralph
Reed or both. I think these people are scoundrels,” said Siegelman, a
Democrat who blames his failure to win re-election on the lottery defeat.
God and gambling, Christians and casinos, what a powerful pairing,
which, when you look at the bottom line, all adds up to big bucks. Big bucks
that ran from one Bushie to another, on behalf of God who is against gambling,
while Christians make sure casinos don't land in their neck of the woods, as
the guys who represent God, the Republicans, cash in big on being consultants.
It's a nifty little racket Rove and Reed, with a lot of help from
Delay, Abramoff and even the money man himself, Grover Norquist, have going.
The Bushies must be betting God likes gamblers, because they've put it all on the line.
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