Ralph Reed came through the ranks of conservatism through the College Republicans, which was headed by Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist back in the 80's. He suddenly turned into a religious-right zealot during that time and then capitalized on the poll results he collected from Pat Robertson's failed presidential run in 1988 and then ran the faith-based caucus called the Christian Coalition.

His loyalty to Jack Abramoff never wavered and when he was caught lying to his coalition so he could reap in millions of dollars from the gaming industry as well as the Choctaws Indian tribe, disgrace followed.

In 1999, Abramoff subcontracted Reed’s firm to generate opposition to attempts to legalize a state-sponsored lottery and video poker in Alabama, an effort that was bankrolled by the Choctaw Tribe in order to eliminate competition to its own casino in neighboring Mississippi. Reed promised that Century Strategies was “opening the bomb bays and holding nothing back” and his firm ultimately received $1.3 million from the Choctaws for this effort, which included engaging the Alabama chapter of the Christian Coalition, as well as influential right-wing figures such as James Dobson, to work to defeat the proposals. The strategy had one small problem: the Alabama Christian Coalition had an explicit policy that it “will not be the recipient of any funds direct or in-direct or any in-kind direct or indirect from gambling interests.” (Emphasis in original.) Knowing this, Reed and Abramoff worked to hide the source of the $850,000 paid to the Christian Coalition for its anti-gambling efforts by funneling money from the Choctaws through Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington, DC anti-tax organization headed by their old College Republican friend Grover Norquist. When asked why the tribe’s money had to be funneled through conduits such as ATR, a Choctaw representative stated it was because Reed did not want it known that casino money was funding his operation: “It was our understanding that the structure was recommended by Jack Abramoff to accommodate Mr. Reed’s political concerns. ”Nonetheless, Reed repeatedly assured the Christian Coalition that the funding for its work was not coming from gambling interests.

So why was he on Morning Joe and giving political advice? He's obviously a con man, who pilfered huge amounts of money while lying to the very people who made him politically.

Charles Pierce responds appropriately:

Don't know if any of you saw it, but Morning Squint, the wake-up show on liberal network MSNBC, had an episode today that can reasonably called epic. There was a long segment on the new bag of gossip produced by the Double Haitch Boys. (Listening to Mika Brzezinski talk to Mark Halperin about politics was like watching a seal and a goat recite Shakespeare.) It appears that sources say Barack Obama may have had some moments of doubt during the campaign. There was some usual Obamacare goofery. And then, because the opinions of Jack Abramoff's sanctified bagman matter to somebody in the booking office, we had Ralph Reed giving sage political advice to the Republicans about how to get out of the ditch, as though he and his decades of Jesus-grifting hadn't helped driven it there in the first place. Let us be plain. Ralph Reed is a con-man who would sell his gray-haired granny to the Somali pirates for fifty cents worth of consulting fees. He has nothing worth contributing to the national dialogue. This should be plain by now to all but the deliberately dim. The people who put this mess together every morning are not as embarrassing as the allegedly important people who appear on it, and nowhere near as embarrassing as the people who take it seriously, some of whom rule us.

This type behavior by the media for many years now is helping to send this once great democracy down the tubes. Why do they do this? Why put on tainted people with absolutely no reputation to stand on? Kevin Baker was also thoroughly disgusted when he saw Reed making a comeback and wrote a great article about it:

The disgraced evangelical pretty boy is up to his old tricks. I can understand how the rubes get taken in by grifters like Ralph Reed, but what excuse does MSNBC have?

Remember when Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy were caught off air denigrating the choice of Sarah Palin for VP, only to then go live on air with opposite opinions?

Roger Ailes hired Oliver North as a political analyst, even though he illegally sold weapons to Iran in what was a huge case known as Iran-Contra. There are many, many more hucksters running around on television these days and unfortunately, they make great cash out of it while the nation suffers from the dissemination of their lies.

This has got to stop!

Here's a report on Mariana Reed and Moyers video on the scandalous Ralph Reed:

