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Comcast Using Ethically Disgraced Ralph Reed to Advise on Time Warner Cable Merger

That "paragon of virtue" Ralph Reed is helping Comcast with their merger problems.

That “paragon of virtue” Ralph Reed is helping Comcast with their merger problems. (Image: Mark Fiore)

The owner of left-leaning MSNBC has engaged a religious conservative activist to handle consulting work on Capitol Hill for a cable company so hated, even ardent pro-business conservative Republicans are holding their noses contemplating a merger that would make Comcast even larger.

Ralph Reed has tried to keep his head down during his 8-10 year “association” with Comcast, whose executives make regular major contributions to Democratic Party candidates and play golf with President Barack Obama.

Reed’s ethically challenged past has made him notorious in Washington, and many well-connected lobbyists avoid publicly associating with the man who helped the disgraced lobbyist Ralph Abramoff rip off Native Americans for $100 million. Even worse, while Abramoff and Reed were working to rob various tribes blind in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana,  the next mission would be protecting off-shore sweatshops in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. possession that lacks American labor law protections. Workers were paid less than half the American minimum wage, had their movements restricted, were sexually exploited, and churned out products for corporations that could still claim they were proudly “Made in the U.S.A.”

Both men kept it ‘klassy with a k’ with respect to their paying clients. Abramoff routinely called  tribal leaders “monkeys” and Reed wanted to use his new found expertise in corporate lobbying to enrich himself. Reed sent e-mail to Abramoff recommending himself as a corporate lobbying asset, because of his ability to mobilize hundreds of thousands of religious conservative households through an extensive network of politically active pastors willing to use religion to advance the agendas of his corporate clients.

“I need to start humping in corporate accounts,” Reed wrote Abramoff, noting he could quickly create anti-gambling astroturf groups morally opposed to allowing new gambling ventures on religious grounds. In reality, his opposition was actually designed to protect Abramoff’s existing clients — Native American tribal casinos — from facing new competition.

comcast twcReed is theoretically trying to promote the Comcast merger with skeptical political and religious conservatives who have heard loud complaints from constituents about the cable company. But one of Reed’s self-proclaimed selling points is that he prefers to move in the shadows.

“I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare,” Mr. Reed told a Virginia newspaper in 1991. “I paint my face and travel at night. You don’t know it’s over until you’re in a body bag.”

Had Reed kept a lower profile, his association with Comcast might have never seen the light of day.

“It’s widely known because Ralph’s been on conference calls,” one insider said. “It has been at least eight years; it’s been some time.”

Century Strategies, the Atlanta-based firm Reed owns, has been on retainer with Comcast for eight or 10 years, the source said.

ralph reed bio

Unfortunately for Comcast, Reed has appeared at one too many microphones lately, spouting off at various conservative functions including the annual Faith & Freedom Coalition, where he loudly compared the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of same-sex marriage as a historical mistake as explosive as the 1857 Dred Scott decision. That was the one where the court ruled that all blacks — slaves as well as free — were not and could never become citizens of the United States. How could I have missed the similarities!

Comcast didn’t respond to a request for comment about its reported engagement of Reed’s company. Century Strategies also didn’t respond to a request for comment from the Washington Blade, which exposed the Reed-Comcast link, to confirm the reports.

Much of what constitutes official paid lobbying vs. an informal conversation is just part of the murky world of Beltway lobbying. So far, Reed has not filed as an official lobbyist.

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txpatriot
txpatriot
9 years ago

Phillip, maybe I’m just too dense, but what is the point you are trying to make?

Aaron
Aaron
9 years ago
Reply to  txpatriot

As usual I can’t speak for Phillip, but from the context of the above post it would seem pretty obvious that Phillip is trying to say Ralph Reed is a “bad guy” and choosing him as a spokesperson for this merger not only makes Comcast (and their affiliates, like MSNBC) look worse for supporting a person with such poor character, it also justifies many of the negative feelings about the merger as a whole.

But that’s just my interpretation of this post…

txpatriot
txpatriot
9 years ago
Reply to  Aaron

So Phillip is basically saying that Comcast is shooting itself in the foot by hiring this guy? OK.

Now my question is: why does Phillip care? 99.99% of the country opposes this merger, so if Comcast hires a guy that makes them look bad, isn’t that a “good thing” as far as merger opponents go? Phillip’s concern that Comcast not make itself look bad strikes me as rather odd and misplaced.

Of course maybe I’m still not seeing Phillip’s real purpose . . .

John Passaniti
Admin
9 years ago
Reply to  txpatriot

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Ralph is an awful person. At best, Comcast hired Ralph because they don’t know his past. At worst, Comcast hired Ralph because they did know his past. Both possibilties reflect badly on Comcast.

It really doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.

txpatriot
txpatriot
9 years ago
Reply to  John Passaniti

I’m not trying to complicate it.

Comcast = bad. Ralph = bad. Comcast + Ralph = bad.

OK, but so what?

Aaron
Aaron
9 years ago
Reply to  txpatriot

txpatriot’s original question was “Phillip, maybe I’m just too dense, but what is the point you are trying to make?” txpatriot answers his own question with “Comcast = bad. Ralph = bad. Comcast + Ralph = bad.” i think that your answer IS the point: Ralph is bad, and Comcast is bad, and choosing a bad guy to support a bad merger just goes to show how bad Comcast can be. Why does there have to be a “so what”? Can’t a person spread news that proves a point? The point being, as you so eloquently put it, that Comcast… Read more »

Aaron
Aaron
9 years ago

I can’t speak for Phillip. But maybe it’s more like 99% of the country opposes the merger, and you may be surprised what the “1%” could push through despite the best protests of everyone else. So, a little more ammunition for the opponents is a good thing, and this is just a way to spread the word, not a showing of concern about Comcast’s reputation.

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