Former U.S. Rep. Robert W. Ney will be a free man Saturday after serving 17 months of a 30-month federal sentence on political corruption charges connected to his dealings with now-jailed former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
And then, the Ohio Republican is expected to embark on a new career - as a political commentator for the Talk Radio News Network.
The job has been in the works through the efforts of longtime friend and ally, Ellen Ratner, the Washington bureau chief of the network, as first reported by The Hill.
The friendship between Ney and Ratner seems about as likely, on the face of it, as his transformation from convicted felon to political-analyst.
Ratner is a self-described “proud liberal,” who authored “101 Ways to Get Your Progressive Ideas on Talk Radio” and who provides the liberal perspective on politics on Fox News. Ney is the congressman who once mandated that “french fries” be renamed “freedom fries” on House of Representatives food service menus, after the French criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Ratner described in an October, 2006 column for The Hill newspaper how she got to know Ney back in the mid-1990s when, as a freshman congressman, he appeared alongside her on radio programs in the Ohio River Valley. While the two of them often disagreed politically, she said she came to respect him as someone “who really did remember where he came from” and who strove to help the struggling constituents of his former Steel Belt district.
“What first struck me about Bob was how much the poverty in his home region tore at him,” she wrote. “This wasn’t your typical Republican, nor did my reporter’s nose pick up the cynical, “I-feel-your-pain” shallowness you often see in politicians on both sides of the aisle.
She also declared herself “heartbroken” over his fall from grace.
A short time later, Ratner was one of two people who appeared at Ney’s side in federal district court when he pleaded guilty to corruption in connection with accepting tens of thousands of dollars worth of expensive meals, luxury travel and skybox sports tickets, among other goodies, from Abramoff, in exchange for favors to Abramoff’s clients.
Ney is the only lawmaker to have gone to jail in the influence-peddling investigation around Abramoff. He once flew with Abramoff to the famed Old Course at the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland, and also accepted vacations in New Orleans and Arizona in exchange for helping Abramoff’s clients secure government contracts. He also admitted taking thousands of dollars in gambling chips from an international businessman who sought his help with the State Department.
Michael Real, community corrections manager for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, told the Washington Post that Ney is being released more than a year early because of good behavior and his participation in a drug and alcohol program while in prison. Ney, in his guilty plea, told a federal judge that he was an alcoholic; he has been subjected to mandatory testing since entering prison.
His friend Ratner was among those who wrote to Federal District Court Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle in support of a leniency citing his alcohol addiction.
“Unfortunately, Congressman Ney made some grave personal judgments for which he has paid, and will continue to pay, a heavy price. Although he takes full responsibility, I believe that alcohol was the driving force behind those poor judgments. I will always regret that I waited too long before I sought help for him and his alcoholism. Having worked extensively in the field of alcohol addiction before becoming a journalist, I had been very concerned about his drinking since the year 2000.”
Ratner has some expertise in making such assessments. According to her Talk Radio profile, she began her career as a co-founder of Boundaries Therapy Center, in Acton, Ma, and also as the director of a psychiatric day treatment program at a Quincy, Ma. health center.. From 1986 to 1990, she served as vice-president of research, development, and service at the Addiction Recovery Corporation, and she also authored The Other Side of the Family: A Book for Recovery from Abuse, Incest and Neglect.
Back in March, Ratner told The Hill that she had put Ney on the payroll as a researcher to facilitate his move from the Federal Corrections Institution in Morgantown to a Cincinnati halfway house, and that she hoped to expand his role to on-air commentator once he was released.
“The Bureau of Prisons won’t let him be on air,” she said then.
She added that some colleagues had been skeptical about hiring Ney, but they changed their minds after seeing his work.
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1 Comments
#1. Thomas Kinney 06.06.2009
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