Guest Post by Morbo
One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about the Jack Abramoff/Indian casino scandal is seeing Ralph Reed’s name dragged through the mud on a regular basis. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Many bigwigs active in the Religious Right, I am convinced, really are religious fanatics. They believe what they say and are absolutely convinced the Bible backs them up. That’s what makes a guy like James Dobson so scary.
Others are just in it for all the money and power they can grab. They have no ethics or principles and their real god is Mammon. That’s what makes Reed so scary.
But not everyone who plays this game becomes as famous or wealthy as Reed. Several notches below him rests a cast of minor players who move in the orbit of the Religious Right the way seagulls hang around the fringes of a garbage dump, always looking for a tasty morsel they can walk away with.
A guy named Daniel Lapin, the Religious Right’s favorite rabbi, plays this important role for the theocrats among us. Whenever the Religious Right needs to claim Jewish support, Lapin is there. It’s a lucrative job, because only a handful of rabbis in the country are willing to humiliate themselves by doing things like publicly exonerating TV preacher Pat Robertson after he has written an entire book based on post-World War I anti-Semitic conspiracy theory tracts. Yet Lapin did it.
The Los Angeles Times recently told an interesting story about this rabbi for hire: Abramoff had been nominated for membership in the Cosmos Club, an exclusive social organization in the nation’s capital. He was worried. Most members have received prestigious awards, and Abramoff lamented that he had not. Would it be possible, Abramoff asked Lapin in an e-mail, for Lapin’s group, Toward Tradition, to bestow an award upon him? Abramoff sought “something like Scholar of Talmudic studies” and noted that it would “be even better if it were possible that I received these in years past.”
In other words, Abramoff sought awards that he had not earned – and wanted them back dated. Lapin was happy to comply. In replying to Abramoff he wrote, “Let’s organize your many prestigious awards so they’re ready to ‘hang on the wall.'”
Today Lapin says he was kidding and never intended to give Abramoff the awards. I’m sure that’s the case.
Despite his vacuous nature, Lapin has ingratiated himself into the Washington right-wing power structure. A recent Washington Post profile asserted that Lapin “is known as a fluid, captivating speaker….” and noted that he coaches some members of Congress.
I’m afraid I have to disagree. I’ve heard Lapin speak a few times. He’s turgid and frequently incoherent. He’s also pompous and obviously not very bright. If Lapin is giving pointers on public speaking, that may explain why political oratory is a dying art.
So how did someone as dim as Lapin get where he is? Mainly by perfecting a type of theological prostitution. As The Post put it:
For conservatives searching for biblical foundations for their political positions, Lapin is validation from the original source. His specialty is finding support in the Torah for what turns out to be the current Republican platform: lower taxes, decreased regulation, pro-traditional family policies.
Lapin doesn’t have to have skills, talent or intelligence. He just has to slap on a yarmulke and be ready to attend right-wing press conferences at a moment’s notice. Truth be told, Lapin is just a useful unicycle-riding bear in the Religious Right’s circus. Every Religious Right meeting I’ve attended or read about has included three crucial speakers: a right-wing Jew, who validates the views of the all-Christian fundamentalist audience; a right-wing African American, who validates the views of the all-white audience and a right-wing young person, who validates the views of the mostly over-60 crowd. It’s not a real show without them.
There’s not much dignity in the work Lapin does, but it has some rewards. You get to go on free trips and receive speaking fees. You get your picture taken with Tom DeLay, and if you’re lucky you might get some appearances on the Fox News Channel.
It’s not much, but it beats working for a living.