Gandhi: ninny of the 20th century

[jilln]

Go to crooksandliars.com and watch the Stephen Colbert video on Ralph Reed, in which he shows an editorial written by Reed with the title above.

I became curious to read what would clearly be a nutjob editorial, and found the following article:

http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A19515

which contains excerpts from the article. No big surprises – racism, outlandish claims, ideas that no sane person could entertain for more than half a second... and plagiarism. Apparently Reed is one of the rightwing wackos who can't even come up with their own crazy ideas.

Seriously... how do these people ever convince anyone else to follow them? Must be a lot of poetry lovers out there... you know, willing to suspend disbelief.

On edit: I'm also amazed by his use of the word "ninny" in a headline. It's so 3rd grade.

[Warpy]

1. Hate is a drug

and men like Reed give people permission to use it.

It's as destructive a drug as meth and for many of the same reasons.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Reed's in good company in denigrating true humanitarians.

A few years ago, Jerry Falwell declared Archbishop Desmond Tutu "a phoney". Falwell was not called on that slanderous remark.

[jilln]

3. Well, he should know a phoney when he sees one ;-)

Do you remember what it was in relation to?

[valerief]

4. FOG. Fear of God.Works every time. n/t

[rhymeinreason]

5. And Reed plagiarized the bulk of the article!

"Reed's column might have read like a well-researched piece with deeply held opinions, until a graduate student noticed that the words had a familiar ring.
William Reid Jr., a graduate student in political science, wrote a letter to the Red & Black pointing out the similarities between Reed's column and "The Gandhi Nobody Knows" by Richard Grenier in the March 1983 issue of Commentary, a conservative Jewish intellectual magazine."Every assertion of, every quote and several seemingly original Reed phrases may be found directly or in slightly modified form in Richard Grenier's long review," Reid wrote."

snip

"Not all of the piece was plagiarized, however. The words "ninny," "quack" and "boob" were Reed's. "