Posts on Ralph Reed

After all the controversy provoked by the fact that John McCain was set to attend a fundraiser with Jack Abramoff crony Ralph Reed, it looks like the McCain campaign and Reed both wised up and decided not to be seen together at last night’s fundraiser in Atlanta:

John McCain raised more than $1.75 million for Republicans Monday at a fundraiser clouded by confusion over the role of a political operative connected to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

The downtown event was promoted by Ralph Reed, a former head of the Christian Coalition. McCain's campaign said the event was organized by the Republican National Committee , not Reed, who was linked to the Abramoff scandal that McCain investigated in the Senate.

McCain didn't raise the issue during his 22-minute appearance. Instead, he thanked donors to the Republicans' umbrella campaign fund.

"Everybody in this room could be someplace else," the Arizona senator told the crowd of several hundred. "Everybody in this room could be donating to some other cause or to their own well-being. But I want to thank you."

Reed was not seen inside the hotel ballroom; a McCain campaign spokeswoman said he did not attend.

Do you get the impression that the RNC is having trouble figuring out how to spin the fact that John McCain is teaming up with Ralph Reed for a fundraiser? Is this the best they could come up with?

RNC spokesman Alex Conant said, "It's laughable Democrats would try to make this a political issue, considering John McCain led the Abramoff investigations and has a record of fighting to reform Washington."

Ummm … that is kind of the point.  McCain and the RNC are trying to portray him as a crusader “fighting to reform Washington,” and yet here he is going to a fundraiser with Reed, who was directly implicated in the Abramoff investigation that McCain led.  

The only thing laughable is the RNC’s pathetic attempt to dismiss the obvious hypocrisy at work.

Take a stroll around John McCain’s website and you’ll see that he is no fan of corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff.  In fact, he seems to view him as a symbol of what is wrong with Washington DC and himself as the one man who can fix it:

I led the Abramoff investigation. I can bring about the necessary changes. Are we going to hand off to the next generation these problems? Of course we shouldn't. Have to regain the trust that dollars they send to Washington are being wisely and carefully spent. I know these people (in Congress) well and I know how to reach across the aisle to solve these problems.

McCain says he gets angry when “I uncover a guy like Abramoff ripping off Indian tribes” and when, just last week, his campaign unveiled its “Broken” ad, it cited McCain’s role in leading “the Congressional investigation into Jack Abramoff” as proof of the ad’s assertion that he “fought corruption in both parties.”

Yet, despite his pose as a crusading maverick, McCain has committed himself to attending a fundraiser with Ralph Reed, one of Abramoff’s closest friends and associates who was repeatedly and directly implicated in the very investigation that took down Abramoff:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain so far is ignoring calls from several watchdog groups to cancel an Atlanta fundraiser promoted by Ralph Reed, a longtime friend and business partner of imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

…

Reed lost his 2006 campaign for Georgia lieutenant governor in large part because of details about his relationship with Abramoff — much of the information uncovered by McCain’s Indian Affairs Committee investigation into the wide-ranging lobbying corruption scandal.

The Senate probe discovered $4 million in payments Reed accepted to run a bogus anti-casino campaign aimed at reducing gambling competition. An Indian tribe with a competing casino made payments to Reed, which according to the Senate investigation’s final report, were “passed through” Abramoff’s firm, Preston, Gates, Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds, and another organization, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform.

In our report on Reed written back in 2006, we explained just how deeply involved he was in Abramoff’s shady dealings:     

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.”

…

Perhaps the most audacious of all of Abramoff’s efforts on which Reed worked was the successful attempt on behalf of the Coushatta Tribe to shut down a rival casino in Texas.  After doing so, Abramoff then sold his lobbying services for $4 million to the same Texas tribe – the Tiguas - vowing to reopen the very casino he had just managed to shut down.

Reed was instrumental in the initial effort, building public support for then-Texas Attorney General, now a US Senator, John Cornyn’s drive to close the casino.  Reed organized a group of Texas pastors to “provide cover” for Cornyn’s effort to shutter the casino, at one point pledging to send “50 pastors to give him moral support” when it appeared as if Cornyn was going to be confronted by protestors.

Reed also developed close ties with sources in Cornyn’s office who kept him informed on developments, which he shared with Abramoff.  When Reed found out from Cornyn’s office that a court decision shutting down the casino was expected soon, he emailed Abramoff.  Thinking ahead, Abramoff was already preparing to fly to Texas to meet with the tribe whose casino was about to be closed thanks, in large part, to his handiwork.  In an email he sent to Reed just before his trip, he wrote “I wish those moronic Tiguas were smarter in their political contributions. I’d love to get my hands on that moolah!! Oh well, stupid folks get wiped out.”

Just days after the Tigua’s casino was closed, Abramoff met with them and offered to work to reopen the casino at no charge, though Scanlon’s PR work was going to cost them more than $4 million.  Abramoff declared himself outraged by the “gross indignity perpetuated by the Texas state authorities” – an “indignity” that he had helped orchestrate and for which he had been well paid.

Of the four men identified in this photo, all were implicated in Abramoff's corruption and three received prison sentences – McCain is attending a fundraiser with the fourth:

It is no secret that Ralph Reed’s political ambitions went down in flames in 2006 thanks primarily to his ties to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff.  It is also no secret that Sen. John McCain, then Chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, played a central role in highlighting Abramoff’s corruption, as well as his ties to Reed, with the release of its “Gimmie Five” report just weeks before Reed’s primary in Georgia.  

But apparently Reed is not one to hold a grudge, nor is McCain one to turn down assistance from someone who’s dirty dealings made him unelectable in his own state.  And so, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Political Insider reports, the two are teaming up for a fundraiser in Atlanta later this month:

A Message from Ralph Reed:

Senator John McCain will be coming to Atlanta on August 18 for a very special event at the Marriot Marquis downtown and I have agreed to serve as a member of the McCain Victory 2008 Team.

Never in my career can I recall a starker contrast between two major-party nominees for President. Barack Obama is advocating higher taxes, more spending, a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, and an energy plan that opposes drilling on the outer continental shelf. The nonpartisan publication National Journal concluded that he had the most liberal voting record in the U.S. Senate.

John McCain believes in a strong national defense, a smaller, more accountable government, steady economic growth and opportunity, the dignity of life and traditional values. He will make it a top priority to balance the budget and get federal spending under control so that our children aren’t burdened with a mountain of debt that will rob them of their future.

John McCain also believes that tax cuts work best when tied to spending restraint. He has a 26-year pro-life voting record and has pledged to appoint conservative judges who will interpret the law, not legislate from the bench.

Attached is a contribution form and a fact sheet that details the event. Please complete the contribution form and return it to me at XXXXX Duluth, GA 30097. If you select to use your credit card, you may fax the form to me at 770-XXX-XXXX.

I hope you will join me and Jo Anne at the August 18 event in support of Senator McCain in Atlanta. The outcome of this presidential election is going to determine the future direction of this country. Please join us as we work together to elect John McCain. Your participation is critical to success.

If you are Fox News and looking to do a segment related to the Olympics on the issue of China and religion, who better to invite on than a noted expert on the subject … maybe someone like Ralph Reed:

Well, China has always been something of a paradox and a riddle for Americans. I mean, it's an officially communist country that is increasingly embracing capitalism and free enterprise. It is, as you said, an officially atheist country that has arguably one of the most robust churches anywhere in the world. You mentioned the figure of 70 million Christians in China. Some figures go as high as 130 million.

And I think what we're really seeing, Heather, and the Olympics are really putting a spotlight on it, you cannot put the genie back in the bottle once you allow some measure of any kind of liberty. And when you allow cultural exchanges and we have hundreds of thousands of Chinese students who have come here, and then gone back home, there's an exchange of ideas. There's an exchange of Democratic values. The Internet is exploding, and Christianity is part of that flowering of liberty that I don't think the communist government is going to be able to snuff out.

In fairness, it is not as if Reed is completely unqualified to discuss the issue of Christianity and China – after all, he did once shill for Jack Abramoff in his efforts to fend off regulation of the Northern Marianas Islands by citing the fact that the Chinese slave laborers working there were “exposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ”: 

The promise of eternal salvation for Chinese peasants proved to be a useful tool for Reed. In 1999, Abramoff hired him to help lobby on behalf of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth that is exempt from federal wage and labor laws, a loophole that allows garmentmakers to stitch MADE IN THE U.S.A. into their products without having to follow any U.S. rules. It’s also a hellhole for migrant workers: sweatshop labor, sex slavery, forced abortions for imported peasants. None of that was a secret: By the time Reed signed on as Abramoff’s subcontractor, there’d been years of studies and media reports documenting the conditions.

But in August 1999, Reed’s direct-mail subsidiary sent a pamphlet to conservative Alabama Christians urging them to call a Republican congressman and thank him for opposing the imposition of federal rules on the Northern Marianas. The mailer, sent under the auspices of the Traditional Values Coalition, claimed that “the radical left, the Big Labor Union Bosses, and Bill Clinton want to pass a law preventing Chinese from coming to work on the Marianas islands” and that they “have spread vicious lies about this U.S. territory to silence the gospel.” The pamphlet’s grotesque logic: Many of those sweatshop seamstresses and bullied prostitutes “are exposed to the teachings of Jesus Christ…are converted to the Christian faith and return to China with Bibles in hand, ready to spread the gospel and start home churches.”

Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported that right-wing activists were preparing for a fight at the Republican Convention in Minnesota in September:

Conservative activists are preparing to do battle with allies of Sen. John McCain in advance of September's Republican National Convention, hoping to prevent his views on global warming, immigration, stem cell research and campaign finance from becoming enshrined in the party's official declaration of principles.

Well, the St. Paul Pioneer-Press has done some digging and calling around and reports that, indeed, many of the Religious Right’s leaders are planning on attending: 

Former Sen. Bob Dole will attend. But Sen. Elizabeth Dole will not.

 

Newt Gingrich will be in St. Paul for the Republican National Convention. Evangelist Pat Robertson will not.

And first lady Laura Bush will join President Bush here on Sept. 1, the White House says. But former first lady Nancy Reagan will not show up.

With the convention about a month away, the RSVPs and the regrets are piling up. So far, organizers have been reluctant to reveal which dignitaries plan to attend Sen. John McCain's nominating party Sept. 1-4.

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Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schafly will attend, as will Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. Also bound for St. Paul are Gary Bauer of American Values and Ralph Reed, formerly of the Christian Coalition. But anti-abortion activist Randall Terry said he's still deciding.

"Denver is a for-sure, and St. Paul we're still discussing," Terry said of the two conventions.

If Terry comes to St. Paul, he promises some unspecified civil disobedience, he said, "but it would be done in a way that honored the party's commitment to the pro-life cause."

It should be interesting, considering that the Right has traditionally used the GOP convention as an opportunity to showcase its radical agenda.  In fact, the last time GOP was fielding a nominee who was unpopular with the right-wing base was in 1996 with Bob Dole, and when the Right descended on that convention, they tried to throw their weight around and ended up embarrassing the party on national television:

On the eve of the convention, leaders of the Christian Coalition were boasting openly of their influence in the party. Ralph Reed, the group's baby-faced leader, described in detail how his troops had been prepared to ensure that their views triumphed on their key issue of outlawing all abortions, by mobilizing pro-life delegates through a sophisticated network of floor co-coordinators.

As it turned out, a floor fight was averted and the Christian forces were left on the sidelines. One morning last week, 2,000 of them gathered at an outdoor amphitheatre surrounded by palm trees and placards portraying bloody aborted fetuses. Several kilometers from the convention site, they indulged themselves in the kind of rhetoric that Republican leaders were desperate to keep off the prime-time airwaves. Former vice-president Dan Quayle, one of their heroes, assured them that they should not fear being labeled extremist. "Know what?" he asked. "You aren't extreme; you are mainstream America."

Roger O'Dell, a convention delegate and Christian Coalition member from El Paso, Tex., tipped back the white cowboy hat with a "Life of the party" slogan on the band that shielded him from the hammering sun. "I don't think we've been pushed aside," he reflected. "Most of the people at the convention are with us. We own the convention. But here's the deal: it took 30 or 35 years to move away from American values, and it'll take a while longer to win the country back. So we can be patient."

Another Christian activist, retired electrical engineer Meredith Raney of Florida, proudly sported a T-shirt bearing the uncompromising slogan "Intolerance is a beautiful thing." On the back was the explanation: God is intolerant of evil; Lincoln was intolerant of slavery; and Churchill was intolerant of Hitler. "Thing is," said Raney, "Christians are criticized for being intolerant in this party. But there's a whole lot of intolerance in our history that we're proud of. With abortion, we're where we were at with slavery just before the Civil War. Some people thought it was bad, some people said it was OK. I hope we don't need another civil war to resolve it, but we will win this fight for the unborn." As for the Republicans' efforts to keep the Christian right under wraps, Raney said: "I think it could cost them the election. There's a lot of Christians that won't vote for Dole - and there's an awful lot of us."

The Boston Globe reports that “most of the big-money backers who helped reelect Bush in 2004 haven't pulled out their checkbooks for McCain.” Ralph Reed, however, is not one of them: "I am not sitting it out. I will be on the host committee for a McCain event in Atlanta in August and will contribute and raise."

Ralph Reed came on the “700 Club” Thursday to talk to his former Christian Coalition boss, Pat Robertson, about his new political thriller “Dark Horse.” Naturally, the topic turned to the non-fiction election, and Reed predicted that Religious Right issues such as abortion and gay marriage would maintain hold upon the electorate. But given how many similarities Reed sees between his novel and the 2008 campaign, it must be difficult to keep the fantasy straight from the reality. Here’s a clip:

Reed also praised John McCain for reaching out to the Religious Right on judges, and emphasized the importance of his vice-presidential pick.

Ever since losing the Republican primary for Lt. Governor in Georgia thanks to his ties to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed’s once stratospheric career has come fully crashing back to earth.

Once hailed as “The Right Hand of God,” Reed built the Christian Coalition into one of the most powerful political organizations in the country in the mid-1990s, only to watch its, and his, influence wane after backing Bob Dole in 1996.  Shortly thereafter, Reed left the Coalition, which went into a tailspin, while he set up his own public relations and public affairs firm, Century Strategies, in Georgia with an eye on running for office.  Things looked good, with Reed becoming chairman of the Georgia Republican Party in 2002 and serving a key role in the Bush campaign in 2004, until his shady business dealings with Jack Abramoff came to light and doomed his chance of winning elected office.

Since then, Reed has more or less fallen off the public radar, though he has been spotted occasionally offering analysis on CNN, stumping with Mitt Romney, and offering political advice to John McCain.  But with his political career seemingly at a standstill, it looks like Reed has decided to try out a new career as the author of a new political thriller:

As the general election approaches, a contentious battle for the Democratic nomination continues right up to the convention between the two remaining candidates. The Republican contender is a military hawk, loathed by the religious right. And the country has the possibility of the first African-American president.

Campaign 2008? No, the plot for "Dark Horse," a political thriller by Ralph Reed.

Mr. Reed, the 46-year-old former head of the Christian Coalition and a onetime darling of the Republican Party who fell from grace, has penned a work of fiction that mirrors the current political landscape. But he put his own twist on the race. The defeated Democratic candidate becomes a born-again Christian and wins the White House as an independent.

Of course, just because Reed is taking a break from his political work doesn’t mean that his new book doesn’t serve the very narrative he has been honing for two decades:

In an interview, Mr. Reed calls the book "a fable of sorts." "If the Republican Party were to try to chart a course without the faith-based constituency that has become critical to its success," Mr. Reed says, "it will find itself in permanent minority status.”

Reed told the Wall Street Journal that this novel was the "most honest book, without question, I've written."  Considering that Reed has penned several books in the past, all of them nonfiction, it seems a little curious that he considers his one work of fiction to be the “most honest” thing he’s ever written.

You know that something odd is happening within the Republican Party when a high-profile Religious Right leader is publicly advising John McCain NOT to seek the endorsement of other high-profile Religious Right leaders.  

And you know that something really odd is happening when that figure is Ralph Reed, whose own political career tanked thanks to McCain’s own investigation into the corrupt world of Jack Abramoff.   Yet here Reed is, nearly two years later, doling out campaign advice to McCain as the candidate struggles to overcome the controversy generated by the endorsements of John Hagee and Rod Parsley:

John McCain should stop seeking endorsements from evangelical pastors and instead appeal directly to their church members, said Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition executive director.

“John McCain doesn't need to be standing at a bank of microphones next to a particular leader,'' Reed said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's “Political Capital With Al Hunt,'' to be broadcast today. “My advice would be stay away from endorsements and stick to the issues.''

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Reed, 46, said McCain's strategy of wooing evangelicals shouldn't be “top down,'' and his meetings with leaders and activists should be held in private.

“He needs to connect with them'' by touting his opposition to same-sex marriage and his anti-abortion record, said Reed, a regional director of President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.

…

McCain has made “some real progress'' in repairing his relationship with evangelicals, Reed said. He cited a May 6 speech at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in which McCain promised to choose judges in the mold of U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Both were among the five justices who voted in June 2007 to weaken the senator's landmark campaign-finance law.

“It was one of the best speeches on judicial conservative philosophy from a Republican nominee in my career,'' Reed said.

McCain clearly needs some help on figuring out how best to woo the right-wing base he needs in November, but it’s not clear that he should be taking advice from a guy who lost his own Republican primary race because of his history of exploiting that base for professional gain.

As he was listing off his right-wing promises to the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference, John McCain said he would continue to “seek the counsel of my fellow conservatives.” For Human Events editor Jed Babbin, that isn’t enough: “This is vintage McCain. He promises to hear, not to listen. He promises to seek counsel, but not to respect it. … That is less than we require of our leaders. We require them to adhere to our basic principles, and that those principles be the basis for their decisions.”

Take heart, Mr. Babbin: McCain has all but secured the Republican nomination, and yet he is still reaching out to the fringe:

The Brody File has been talking to some influential social conservative leaders around the country and they tell me that they've been talking to John McCain for months. As a matter of fact, one leader told me John McCain called him after Super Tuesday this week. While details of the phone call remain secret, I can tell you that McCain was reaching out to this particular leader and emphasizing the common ground he has with social conservatives on the life issue, judges and defeating Islamic fascists.

Another social conservative leader told me McCain called him to discuss specifics on social conservative causes. I'm told McCain wanted to be more up to speed on the issues that are important to social conservatives. This leader told me that McCain hasn't been focused on their issues before so he's trying to become more aware of all the details.

Still, we can expect right-wing leaders to keep leveling demands at their presumptive candidate, following the principle that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. McCain needs them, they say: "He cannot rely on some Democrats and a lot of independents to become president of the United States," Tom DeLay said. "He's got to have a base, and hopefully he will understand that."

 “To get the enthusiastic support of conservatives – support he must have, to win – Senator McCain must make his case with deeds, not just words," said Richard Viguerie. Ralph Reed, no friend of McCain’s, put it this way:

"This is fired-up Democratic Party, and it is not enough to simply define the differences between the parties," said Reed, who advised McCain to "choose a running mate with street cred on the right" and devote his nominating convention and fall campaign to "striking conservative themes."

What kind of “conservative themes”? How about judges: While McCain has already bent over backwards to the Right on Supreme Court nominations, with a cooing letter to the Federalist Society this week and his promise at CPAC to appoint judges like Roberts and Alito—Quin Hillyer of Confirm Them wants even more:

McCain pledged to appoint judges like Roberts and Alito. Great. I am a fan of both. But I am even more of a fan of Scalia, and even more than that a fan of Clarence Thomas. I would have been happier if McCain, speaking to this conservative audience, had forthrightly said he would appoint judges like Clarence Thomas.

Of course, McCain voted in favor of confirming Thomas. (He wasn’t in the Senate yet for Scalia’s confirmation. However, he was among a minority of senators to vote for Robert Bork the following year.) But, as he will find out, the Right’s appetite for pandering can be bottomless.

With the number of the Republican presidential hopefuls rapidly dwindling, the GOP primary looks to be coming down to a race between Mitt Romney and John McCain – and considering that many on the Right seem to hate McCain, it only stands to reason that Romney sees winning over those who cannot tolerate his main opponent as key to securing the nomination:

Romney advisers said they would try to attract more support from social conservatives and evangelicals who had flocked to Huckabee and Fred Thompson, who dropped out of the race last week.

"Conservatives have got to take a real hard look and realize this is what you have left: You have Mitt Romney and John McCain. And with two left, I think that helps us a lot," Jay Sekulow, a senior Romney adviser, said last night. [Sekulow is head of the Pat Robertson-founded American Center for Law and Justice.]

For months, Romney has been courting and stacking his campaign with a variety of right-wing activists and seems to have redoubled his efforts in recent weeks, leaving him poised to become the Religious Right’s candidate, if only by default – and Romney’s strategy heading forward seems to be to leave no right-wing activist uncourted:

The Reverend Rob Schenck (pronounced SHANK), president of the National Clergy Council and chairman of the committee on church and society for the Evangelical Church Alliance, will be in Florida today meeting with pastors in several cities to talk about candidates and primary voting.

Mr. Schenck, who does not endorse candidates, will end the day with the Mitt Romney campaign at its invitation.

While the Romney campaign had a problem with Mike Huckabee’s campaign’s attempts to use the issue of faith to polarize the electorate, they apparently have no problem with Schenck’s view that Barack Obama's Christianity is woefully deficient. Maybe they think they can win him over because he is already mad at McCain for scheduling a campaign event “smack in the middle of Sunday morning church hours.” 

For what it is worth, Ralph Reed has also been making the rounds with Romney recently, apparently having forgiven him for confusing him with Gary Bauer early last year.  

But the Romney campaign seems to recognize that this effort can’t really get going so long as Huckabee remains in the race:

Romney acknowledged that the continued presence of Mike Huckabee in the race is a problem for him and made the point that the former Arkansas governor is no longer a contender.

“I don’t know what kind of support Mike Huckabee will get going forward,” Romney said. “I think conservatives recognize that a vote for Mike Huckabee right now really means a vote for John McCain. So that may have them re-think that.”

Unfortunately for Romney, the Huckabee campaign doesn't look like it'll be dropping out between now and Super Tuesday , after which it just might be too late for Romney to fully implement this strategy … which is probably just fine with Huckabee, who clearly prefers McCain, and Huckabee’s supporters, who are busy starting up anti-Romney front groups.

Mitt Romney has secured the support of Randy Tate, former head of the Christian Coalition, and Ralph Reed was spotted at a Romney event in Florida.

Part III of the series, airing Thursday night, "traces how the Christian conservative movement, through grass-roots politics, became a force in U.S. society. The speakers include Ron Luce, founder of the Teen Mania Ministries; Ralph Reed, former executive director of the Christian Coalition; and the Rev. Jerry Falwell, co-founder of the Moral Majority. It would be Falwell's last interview before he died a week later."

For many frustrated right-wing activists, news of Karl Rove’s departure from the White House may have felt like good riddance to bad rubbish. Richard Viguerie called it “good news for conservatives.” Paul Weyrich, another old hand of the conservative movement, said, “You have to say that if (Rove) can claim credit for what happened in 2004, it is reasonable that he is somewhat responsible for where we are in 2007.”

But if these right-wing activists can pin the blame for the administration’s woes on the president’s erstwhile “architect,” they will have a hard time glossing over Rove’s role in giving them an important berth of political power in the Bush White House.