Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

But then something funny happened.  Ralph Reed, who had just left the Christian Coalition to start up Century Strategies, a corporate consulting firm,  suddenly started working to defeat the on-line gambling ban!  What happened?  Why did he suddenly break ranks with his Conservative Christian allies?

His public line was that the dog and horse racing exceptions turned the bill into an explicit endorsement of gambling, which he opposed.  However, recent emails obtained by the Atlanta Journal Constitution seem to prove what has long been suspected, that Reed was in reality acting at the best of elottery (and its lucrative consulting contract), an on-line lottery firm and one of Jack Abramoff's lobbying clients:

Reed, a lifelong opponent of gambling, said last year that he did not know in 2000 he was actually working on behalf of eLottery.

But e-mails obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show Reed was offered the name of the company at the beginning of his involvement in the campaign, in May 2000. The e-mails emerged as dozens of federal investigators have increased their focus on events surrounding the defeat of the Internet gaming ban.

Abramoff included the company's name -- referring to "the elot project" -- in an e-mail he forwarded to Reed, as the two worked out details of Reed's contract for the campaign.

Oops!  

This embarassment exposes the hypocritical heart of the Republican culture of corruption.  The GOP pretends to stand up for uncompromising "moral values," but when you scratch beneath the surface, they're willing to flush those values down the toilet in exchange for a quick buck.