Talk:Ralph E. Reed, Jr.

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Contents

[edit] POV, Citations, and General Cleanup

I would disagree that the article should be scrapped, but I definitely think that this article is heavily, heavily slanted against Reed to the extent that the article violates WP:POV. I'm a Democrat, and actually edited this page a few months back to remove some whitewashing of Reed that had been added, but the article as it stands now is about 15% biography and about 85% a listing of negative information about Reed. A lot of the negative info is not sufficiently notable for inclusion in the article - the section on the high school plagiarism immediately comes to mind. I realize that Reed has been a very important conservative political figure, but a lot of the information here goes far beyond what Reed is actually notable for. The quotations are particularly skewed, and several of them are not properly cited.

In fact, this article needs citations to be added and properly formatted throughout the entire article. Far too many statements are unsourced, and most of the statements that are sourced are not in the proper format.

For these reasons, I am adding tags for POV and citations. I also considered adding a general cleanup tag because I noticed several spelling errors and obvious typos, but I'll leave that tag off for now. Niremetal 06:20, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources???

Why are there almost no sources/footnotes/references? That is sorely missing from this article. -- Sholom 20:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC) (PS: what's the tag that should be used for that?)

[edit] Liberal Bias

This article is crap. It should be trashed and done over from scratch w/o the bias.


--69.37.124.25 02:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, because Reed is such a swell freaking guy. KyuzoGator (talk) 15:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

The into feels more like a a newsfalsh than an introduction to an encyclopedia article--for instance, the news of his recent defeat in Georgia. Plus, I don't feel the phrase "right wing" belongs in the into, even if it is true. I t just feels too POV-y. Would anyone care if I edited these things?

[edit] Pretty one-sided

Wrong -- This article was not taken from the Stop Ralph Reed site. It is the other way around. The Stop Ralph Reed site takes material from the article. How is the article not Neutral? What facts are misstated?

I'm as liberal as anyone, but this article is anything but neutral. Its text is taken almost word for word from Stop Ralph Reed, a Web site dedicated solely to to bashing him. Oh yea, and it's paid for by his political opponent Greg Hecht.

Should this stuff really be on Wikipedia? 130.179.38.96 01:35, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

I just nominated this page for NPOV. I'm an ardent Democrat, so while I took my joy in reading all of the dirt on Ralph Reed, this article is a total hatchet job on the guy, in my opinion, and is clearly heavily biased. I'm not the person to fix this, but I couldn't let the serious issues with this piece sit here unignored.--Bgaulke 05:19, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

If you are going to assert NPOV you need to state the facts that you feel are missing or unfairly presented. Simply saying that you feel the piece is one sided is not enough. At this point Reed is one of the three ringleaders in the original Jack Abramoff scandal, the $1.7 million shakedown of the indian tribes. He is not a bit player in that activity and now Abramoff is talking it is unlikely that many former Abramoff associates have a political career left. The only reason that Reed is not the front page story is that Abramoff has admitted to having purloined over $20 million, so the Abramoff-Reed-Norquist scam is not the main event. Even so it is not NPOV to discuss it and there really is no substantive counter case. --Gorgonzilla 23:30, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I will admit that the scandals in Mr. Reed's life seem to outnumber the sucesses, but perhaps that is the fault of the subject and not the biography. You can't condemn an article merely because it casts the subject in an unfavorable light when it is based on factual evidence. I honestly can't find many instances where the language of the article is overly negative, and any negativity that the article exudes comes from the facts presented in it. I will agree that if more positive information about Mr. Reed can be found it should be included, but there is going to be a negative bias to the article based on the facts of Mr. Reed's life no matter what. -- Fearfulsymmetry 19:15, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the guy one bit, but I am trying to find information about him to use as background for a panel discussion I am leading. And regrettably (and most unusually) Wikipedia is a worthless resource for that purpose. If Jack Abramoff had not become big news the past few months, there'd be very little information here. Considering Reed has had an enormous impact on America and political discourse in America (which some people are glad for and others dislike), I am stunned that there is so little here that's unrelated to his connections with Abramoff. Before visiting this site, I actually didn't know he had any connections to Abramoff, so I learned that much about him. But little else. It would match my uninformed expectations of Reed prior to reading this article for me to see him knee deep in dirty tricks. But the article amounts to a harangue about Reed and his buddy Abramoff by assisting readers with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to see that Reed and Abramoff are two peas in a pod. I'm sure many -- perhaps all -- facts here are correct, but why, in an article about Ralph Reed, do we need to know that he introduced Abramoff to his wife? If we're not trying to make a repetitive connection to help sway an election outcome, why would this even rate a mention? The patent agenda discredits everything else. I'd really like to see the facts about Ralph Reed, and I was thinking that I'd learn he was a skunk. But this source can't be trusted because it is outcome-oriented in the selection and focus of the facts that populate this article. -- WikiVisitor 00:32, 20 April 2006 (EDT)

Thanks for the feedback, I would say if you need any more info on Reed you should go get Gang of Five from the library, as Reed is a featured figure in that book; as a matter of fact there is a whole chapter that covers his life from 1980-1985 and gives much insight on his essential personality. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be right if Wikipedia simply paraphrased all of Gang of Fives biographical material on Reed.
There's also his autobiography Active Faith, but I haven't read that so I don't know if it's good.
But I have to ask, if you came because you didn't know much about him, and you didn't find out what you expected - then what did you expect? We would need to know that to make the article better. What critical piece of his life are we missing? KWH 05:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I remember -- perhaps in error -- that he was a key figure in the anti-abortion movement and making the Moral Majority movement of the mid-80s into a youth movement of sorts, plus his being a high-achiever in the Christian Coalition circles -- where he had earned a reputation that was earned quite independent of the others. I was in law school in the South at the time and there were many law students I knew who wanted to work for him on internships or as starting jobs. He was that influential. Personally, I didn't pay much attention at the time, but until a year ago the name Ralph Reed was instantly recognizable while Jack Abramoff's would have evoked a "Jack Who?" reaction. To think that Reed's early days were spent in anyone's shadow seems out of synch with my recollection. That's why it seems to me that casting his biography in the context of Abramoff is very slanted. The context of Abramoff is fleeting and (to me) smacks of little more than an attempt to make Abramoff's problems stick to Reed. It sounds like it's deserved and I believe the connection merits a mention, but the Abramoff-Reed connection is harped on to the exclusion of describing the more enduring legacy (that I recall) of Reed being his own man and a visionary (for his agenda) and a leader. I had hoped to get a better idea of why he was so influential as a young man...and the answer here seems to be: "because he spent lots of time with big bad Jack Abramoff." Five or ten years from now, Abramoff will fade from the news, but I have a feeling Reed will have left an even bigger mark on America during that time. So, what made him such a leader (with no value judgment attached to whether he was working for good or evil)? And why has he had staying power? I wish he wasn't running for answer because there's just too much garbage to sift through to get to those answers. -- WikiVisitor 14:22, 23 April 2006 (EDT)

Article is incredibly biaed against Reed. Put a NPOV tag on it. The quotations from him are all incredibly negative, including his quote to Abramoff. There's no positive quote from his days at the Christian Coalition that can be used for balance? Just a terrible, terrible article.

[edit] Separated

Some interesting discussion of this guy's work. [1]

I separated off the bit about the Abramoff scandal because much of it is duplicated on the page on Abramoff. The idea here is to have one central article on the scandal and pointers to it. --Gorgonzilla 23:56, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Source for the baboon comment? It is pretty explosive if true.--Gorgonzilla 00:44, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Support and Plans

"Reed is widely believed to be planning to run for Governor of Georgia in 2010 and President in 2012 or 2016."

I read this often in the Georgia press so I understand it's inclusion. However, I suggest as an enclyclopedia entry it needs to have actual foundation. When I read that in a press/pol column it can be seen to be written with a possible tilt to be "believable" when it may actually come from editorial thin air. And, widely believed: what is the circumferance of this wide belief? A case could be made that in Georgia or in Republican political circles it is widely believed, but probably hardly anyone in Wisconsin, for example, even knows there is a race for Lt Gov in Georgia. So I suggest the content behind this statement be maintained, but recomposed.

"Implying the support of President." Again, I read this often in the Georgia press but the sentence here is vague and does not have foundational facts.

Perhaps, in both instances it is enough to say, "In the Spring of 2005 it was widely reported in the Georgia press that Reed is believed to..." and ..."Georgia press reported that President Bush..."

However, in August 2005 Georgia press reports indicated that the President was publicly distancing himself from Reed after the casino stories.Kyle Andrew Brown 00:48, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Gov. Perdue will not be able to run again in 2010 due to a term limit, so whoever becomes Lt. Gov. this year will be in a strong position to run for governor in 2010 with a semi-incumbency advantage. It's likely enough that all of the Lt. Gov. candidates this year have that in mind. Should we mention this? --Jim Henry 18:40, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Casinos

  • Emails from the Committee, in the main article I think I put a direct link to them, it should also be here. The name of Committee should be stated.
  • "white collar criminal defense attorney". Yes he is, but I think especially since no prosecutions are underway that using that entire phrasing is prejudicial. Using the phrase "he has retained legal counsel" is non-judgemental and also is more accurate to use at this point in the investigation because he is retained counsel to be provide legal advice more than to provide specific legal advice for any criminal proceedings.
  • A fundamental difficulty Reed has in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia is that there is the appearance that he used his anti-casino lobbying business to (1) perhaps generate cash out of Abramoff to flow through his own business and (2) to have it appear Alabama was against casinos when in reality there may have been a hidden agenda within Reed's lobby business to keep the competitive threat of Alabama casinos from Mississippi casinos. It's my understanding Reed may not have told his Alabama clients this was why he was lobbying on their behalf.
  • This political/business/lobbying practice is the basis of an unethical practice allegation separate from the financial funding unethical allegation. While they may appear or will appear in the linked scandal article I believe they are essential in this summary paragraph. I would like to see clarity on this.

Kyle Andrew Brown 01:24, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] eLottery

This is an entire section that needs to be written. The point being that Reed not only worked in concert with gambling moneys in Abramoff's Indian Tribe scandal, but also was getting money from eLottery for lobbying for the defeat of the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act. See http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/0304metreed.html for some info. -- Sholom 02:24, 5 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] my edits

I made a few modest edits, which were reverted by another with an ES suggesting I was pushing POV. I disagree. What I did was tone down a well-poisoning intro and add a few "fact" tags. Those are fully reasonable edits and I have restored them. Any questions, please dialog here. Merecat 19:25, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Please justify anjd get concensus on the edits first. The net effect is to remove all the evidence connecting Reed to Ambamoff. These are facts here, two concicted criminals are caught discussing Reed's involvement in their scheme. The fact that they refer to him as a willing partner is significant. I have reverted them -- Gorgonzilla 19:48, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Your repeated wholesale reverts of the "citaion needed" tags which I inserted is self-evident bad faith. I urge you to desist before our disagreement here takes on a formal process. Also, the edit I made to the intro still links directy to the "scandal" article. What I have done is make the intro language more NPOV. What specifically about that edit, do you have a problem with? Merecat 20:47, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Your repeated {{fact}} tagging could be considered vexatious. For example, you {{fact}}ed "At the CRNC, Abramoff, Norquist and Reed formed what was known as the "Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate." See this. Now the cite at the end of the paragraph does say page 143, but I think that's forgivable since it could have been from another edition. I'm not saying that all the tagged items are defensibly verifiable, but that one was easy to find.KWH 22:01, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't consider it good faith to fact tag information so basic to Reed's career as his activities as part of the Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate during his college career. When you fact tag an article it should not be a method of suppressing information you would rather not see. There should be a good faith dispute as to its accuracy. A few minutes with Google would quickly establish that these points are not seriously contended. --Gorgonzilla 03:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "wackos"

I'm weighing in that I don't think the "religious wackos" quote merits mention w/r/t Ralph Reed. The context was a memo from Scanlon's Capitol Campaign strategies to the Coushatta tribal representative. Although Abramoff and Scanlon used Reed as a consultant in this campaign, I think it's a bridge too far to consider this a part of Reed's biography. It's already mentioned at Michael Scanlon, and should probably be mentioned at Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal, once that gets rewritten a bit. KWH 17:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I have removed this and a few more of the quotes which I believe go a bit too far. (below) The ones which I left are the only ones which I believe have biographical interest.KWH 07:16, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

  • "There was always something just a little phoney about him. Was it his sissie GQ baby-face? Or maybe the oiliness of his diction? To me he just came across as a caricature, too much of the exaggerated Boy Scout with a phoney "aw-shucks" that alternated with righteous confidence. Even though media attention and media attacks made him a natural 'underdog' to whom most conservatives and Christians would rally, he just left some doubts." - Georgia Heritage Council organizer Steve Scoggins [2]
  • "His M.O. is to tell evangelical Christians that his cause of the moment, for which he has been hired, is their religious duty, and therefore they need to write regulators, turn up at meetings, or whatever. As an evangelical myself, I resent Christianity being used simply to help Reed's business." - Bob Irvin, former Republican leader of the Georgia House of Representatives [3]
  • "Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them. The wackos get their information [from] the Christian right, Christian radio, e-mail, the Internet and telephone trees." E-mail from Abramoff's partner Michael Scanlon to former outside lawyer Kathryn Van Hoof describing Reed's importance to a lobbying project for the Coushatta tribe, reprinted in Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nov. 3, 2005.
Hmmm...it feels like you're just removing the critical quotes... --User At Work 22:01, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
1 and 2 are just direct slam jobs on Reed by stated opponents of his campaign. Why should Wikipedia give them a soapbox? #3 - I don't know the full context, but I don't think Robertson was commenting directly on Reed, but Abramoff and the Abramoff scandal (in which Reed is a player). I could be wrong. and #4 - I've already stated the problem on that elsewhere - it's a very notable quote to ascribe to Scanlon, but it's a bridge too far to try to tie it to Reed's biographical article. So 2 of these are just slam jobs, and 2 are barely even about the biographical subject.
Of what remains on the page, only 2 out of 6 ascribe any sort of virtue to Reed, saying that the Christian Coalition was a potent force, and his mother saying she knew he would be a success. 2 are negative, linking him to Abramoff, humping in corporate accounts, etc. And 2 are from Reed himself, and are arguably neutral (the militaristic metaphors might excite supporters or turn off critics). As far as I'm concerned, the article could have two quotes - the 'guerilla warfare' quote and the quote from his mother. Those are the only ones which (to me) lend any biographical insight in an NPOV manner. KWH 12:15, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


Don't moan about the quotes - his mother's quote about him is one of the most damning I have ever read. She knew his character better than anyone I presume.

[edit] X-Files

I removed the numerous links to the individual cartoons on this site, for reference and verifiability purposes we should only need one - more tends to belabor the point and might even be seen as advertising. KWH 05:12, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[4] [5] [6] [7]

I removed about 6 more links to the same site - that was a bit excessive. KWH 07:10, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Personal Use of Nonprofit Funds

This one sentence section talks about the trip to Scotland. While Abramoff clearly did something wrong with trip, and so did the govt officials on this trip (Safavian, et al), Reed was just another lobbyist at the time, and so it's not apparent to me that there was anything wrong with Reed's going there. If that's the case, is this one-sentence-section relevant at all? (I mean, it's kinda cool that he was on the trip -- it's like an all-star team of current and possible future convicted felons -- but, as written, it implies Reed did something wrong by being part of the trip). Thoughts? -- Sholom 02:41, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Defeat In Georgia Primary

Thank GOD the Republican voters of Georgia had a sane moment and sent Ralph Reed packing out of public life.. The Republicans in this state have enough problems, having Reed in a high public office would have made us one of the embarassments of the nation....

How does this, exactly, help the article? Aaрон Кинни (t) 05:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plagarism

An anon removed "but was fired for plagarism". If someone can find a citation for this statement, please post it. Thanks. Wjhonson 03:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Conservative bias

Sounds like a conservative talking point. I feel like the article is trying to convince me of something, as opposed to the stating of facts.

"With a Ph.D. in American History from Emory University, Reed built the Christian Coalition movement with an eye toward social reform movements that had gone before him. Reed understood that the long tale of religious involvement in American life should be embraced by all Americans because it had served our country well and unified believers of many denominational stripes. He observed that devout Christians and religious rhetoric had been driving forces behind nearly every social movement in America whether of the right or of the left. From abolition to the New Deal, from the labor movement to civil rights, Christian believers had been instrumental to the expansion of social justice in America. The Christian Coalition sought to stand on those historic movements as it united Catholics, observant Jews, as well as reaching out to African-Americans."

[edit] Why the recent re-write is unacceptable

We have a couple of new editors who have decided that because they don’t like the tone of the article, they can re-write it completely without any discussion or consent of other editors. Here’s why this is unacceptable.

The re-write violates Wikipedia policy on consensus. Much of what is being deleted is made up of long-standing text regarding the facts of Reed’s life and career. Regarding consensus: everyone who reads the page makes a decision to either leave the page as it is or change it. Over time, every edit that remains on a page, in a sense, has the unanimous approval of the community everyone who reads the page makes a decision to either leave the page as it is or change it. and When there are disagreements, they are resolved through polite discussion and negotiation, in an attempt to develop a consensus.

The editors further declare supposed violations of the article on wiki’s rule regarding neutral point of view, but cite no examples.

They delete much important material with no discussion or reason given. Joegoodfriend 18:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)


This is about tag cleanup. As all of the tags are more than a year old, there is no current discussion relating to them, and there is a great deal of editing done since the tags were placed, or in some cases it's clear there is a consensus, they will be removed. This is not a judgement of content. If there is cause to re-tag, then that of course may be done, with the necessary posting of a discussion as to why, and what improvements could be made. Better yet, edit the article yourself with the improvements in place. This is only an effort to clean out old tags, and permit them to be updated with current issues if warranted.Jjdon (talk) 23:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reed Article

Alright, I'm new to this, so forgive my ignorance on some of the ground rules. Perhaps there is a better resolution than a mass revert. I feel this article is negatively biased. What do you think? Smaller scale revisions, with time allowed for others to decide yay or nay? RJWitherby

The short answer when dealing with a Wikipedia article which you feel is overweighted with negative information is to include more of what you consider "positive", rather than to try to eliminate or pare down the negative information. That way your edits are unlikely to be criticized. Unfortunately, the tendency with Wikipedia articles these days is to get larger and larger -- people resist creating smaller more specialized entries, although that too can help the bias/weighting issue. One thing to keep in mind is organization and flow. In other words, if one edits an article to be, let's say, more evenhanded, but also to be more confusing because organization and references have been eliminated, that will often be reverted.
A less salubrious method is to add referenced critical material to people on the "other" side; the pox-on-all-your-houses method. It's a more confrontational method of editing, but the end result is an encyclopedia which details the faults of all parties. --User At Work 20:38, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Learn the basics of wikipedia's policies on consensus, NPOV, citing sources and talk pages and soon other editors will be defending your changes. Joegoodfriend 03:21, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Removed the completely unattributed "we'll kill them all" quotation. --Rev Prez 21:30, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Abramoff Scandal

Reading that section, as a total outsider to this case, I must ask two questions. (i) Has Reed had recourse to defamation laws in cases where accusations against him have proven erroneous in this context? If so, shouldn't these be included in the article for NPOV reasons? (ii) To be complete, should there be references to any current books about the Abramoff scandal that are pertinent to discussions of this case, either apologists for Reed, or from his political opponents? It'd be great if both sides of the debate could be cited to demonstrate neutrality. Calibanu (talk) 02:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)Calibanu