Oh Lord, Won't You Buy Me
for release 01-18-06
Washington D.C.
Ralph Reed has always struck me as one of the greasiest characters in American politics. His demagoguery and his persistent piety have long given me indigestion. His blatantly whorish pandering to the Christian Right in the abortion debate and his shameless lobbying has always reminded me of Eddie Haskell on the old Leave It To Beaver show. The obverse side of the piety coin is hypocrisy.
I'm reminded of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker and William Bennett. It's very risky business to portray yourself as one without sin. I doubt if even Jesus did it.
If a person presents himself as the anointed of god, he is often due for a downfall when he exhibits the faults and foibles of a mere human. America loves this melodrama--the saga of an angel falling from grace. There is nothing quite so satisfying as watching a hypocrite pay his dues.
Now we have Reed running for Lt. Governor of Georgia. He should be the dream candidate with his scrubbed choir boy image and his vast ability to raise lucre. He only has one problem. The house of cards that he helped to construct is shaking and on the verge of collapse. Reed's list of mentors and associates includes not only Jesus but Pat Robertson, Tom Delay, Karl Rove, Enron's Ken Lay, Jack Abramoff and Richard Scanlon. What an illustrious group--the modern day pharisees who proclaim service to god while practicing avarice and the quest for worldly power and pleasure.
Reed, it seems, was taking money from the gambling industry. He was paid to help close down gambling establishments in Texas and Louisiana. He was paid by Jack Abramoff, who was in turn working for the casinos owned by the Coushatta Indian tribe, who didn't want the competition. This would be like Carrie Nation taking money from the liquor industry to chop up competing bars and saloons with her hatchet.
Georgia gave us the man who was in my opinion the best president this country had in the last century, Jimmy Carter. Some don't share this opinion, but if you examine the man's life and his presidency, you see that he not only talked the talk of Christianity, he walked the walk.
That's why it galls The Poet's Eye to see this little sleaze-ball Ralph Reed aspiring to the State House in Georgia. It's not that I resent the fact that the Christian Church has been transformed into the Christian Mafia. That's happened before. What bothers me is that piety and hypocrisy can be packaged and sold, and sales are booming. I trust that the good people of Georgia will see the light and reject this charlatan as their Lt. Governor. If not, they will get just what they deserve, deception, inside dealing and corruption, all with a Sunday school smile.
Oh lord, won’t you buy me a mercedes benz ?
My friends all drive porsches, I must make amends,
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So oh lord, won’t you buy me a mercedes benz ?
---Janis Joplin
bonus cut--Georgia by Lrod
