'Slime And Defend' from Ralph Reed

Buchanan and Press have had some of the best television interviews I have seen on the Valerie Plame affair.

Last night Bill Press asked Ralph Reed about the New York Times report that a Republican aide has said that the White House and the GOP was orchestrating a "Slime and Defend" campaign to block the story.

Reed, who had started with a thin and wan toothless smile, got even more tight-lipped as he first slimed Wilson and capital hill democrats and then defended the President's actions.

Ralph Reed and Karl Rove were the political operatives behind the huge and very expensive slime attacks on McCain and his wife and kid in the South Carolina primary.

Word was spread among South Carolina voters through radio, mail, email and phone banks that McCain had fathered a black daughter out of wedlock (McCain had, in fact, adopted a Bangladeshi girl), that McCain was a homosexual, and that McCain's wife had a drug problem.

Steps were taken to have the worst attacks attributed not to the Bush campaign but to "independent" groups. The FEC also investigated if Enron had given Reed a half-million dollar contract at this time to hide some Bush campaign funding. No smoking gun was found.

Ralph Reed is the former Christian Coalition leader as well as being a major power in the GOP now. He directed the campaign that managed to smear Georgia Senator Max Cleland as unpatriotic. Max Cleland is in fact a highly decorated veteran who lost both his legs and his right arm in Vietnam.

"Speaking of Osama and Saddam, their images provide the backdrop for what may be the single most nauseating, cynical and un-American political advertisement of the midterm campaign. The ad promotes the candidacy of Saxby Chambliss, the Republican Senate candidate running against Democratic incumbent Max Cleland in Georgia, by suggesting that Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, lacks the "courage to lead" on defense and national security issues. The idea that either Chambliss or the Georgia GOP chairman responsible for this outrage, Ralph Reed, possess more courage than Cleland is ludicrous and offensive."

In a 2002 Florida election Century Strategies – founded by Ralph Reed – sent out automated messages to 50,000 Florida households implying that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill McBride supported same-sex marriage, when McBride, in fact, had opposed same-sex marriage and civil unions.

If I had been on the Buchanan and Press show I would have asked Reed: "As a Christian, does he feel he has sold his soul to the devil? Has he looked into his heart about what he has been doing - making his living smearing families of political enemies?"