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ORIGINAL RESEARCHRob Levine The PBS Home TeamThe PBS show called "Think Tank" is really a propaganda arm of the American Enterpise InstituteThink tank. The words evoke notions of, well, thought, consideration, and wisdom. Some time ago places called Think tanks were just that - institutions that conducted honest research that could reliably be used for conducting debates about public policy. But that was a long time ago. Today, a place called a Think tank is more likely to be an advocacy organization, many times closely aligned with one political party or another, Wattenberg is a Senior Fellow at the conservative think tank called the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), based in Washington, DC. He is the sort of hawkish former Democrat whose inclusion helps give the appearance of non-partisanship needed to justify AEI's tax-exempt status. It was long ago that Wattenberg was a speechwriter for President Lyndon B. Johnson, or campaign advisor to Hubert Humphrey, or Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson in the 1970s. Wattenberg was the leader of a group of pro-military Democrats who helped elect Ronald Reagan in 1980, becoming "Reagan Democrats," before ultimately switching parties entirely. Wattenberg's contemporaries in the 70s and 80s included such current Republican neoconservatives as Jeane Kirkpatrick, Irving Kristol, Samuel P. Huntington, Richard Pipes, Michael Novak and Joshua Muravchik. Hitting the lowsOn its website, Think Tank promises that "Each half-hour edition focuses on deeper trends, conditions, and ideas behind a single topic from the week's headlines, bringing viewers something rare on television: Perspective." Since 1994 the show has produced 300 original episodes, What kind of "perspective" can a viewer expect from Think Tank? Four years ago Wattenberg introduced a show titled Dow 36,000? by asking the question, "What will the Dow do next?" then launching into the introduction of the show's guests: Two of today's guests think the stock market is undervalued, way undervalued. They argue in their forthcoming and provocative new book that the Dow Jones average and should be valued at 36,000 today. The co-authors of Dow 36,000 are James Glassman [from the] American Enterprise Institute and ... Kevin Hassett, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute... Glassman and Hassett's views do not to go unchallenged on this program. They are joined by a skeptic, Robert Shiller of Yale University, and author of Market Volatility. The topic before the house, Dow 36,000? This week on Think Tank. Thus began perhaps the most absurd half-hour ever hosted by Ben Wattenberg. This was 1999, the Dow average was already over 10,500, price-to-earnings(p/e) ratios were through the roof, and They were also spectacularly wrong in the reason for their erroneous projection: Glassman and Hassett actually believed, contrary to nearly all economic theory, that stocks and bonds at that time bore equivalent amounts of risk. Try telling that to shareholders of Enron, Worldcom, AOL-Time/Warner, etc., who have lost trillions of dollars in paper worth since 2000, much of it due to fraud perpetrated by corporate chieftains and their financiers. On this particular episode of Think Tank it would appear that Wattenberg had covered his intellectual bases by including Robert Shiller from Yale University as an additional guest, who did indeed question the correctness of Dow 36,000's ludicrous prediction, suggesting that, according to traditional measures of stocks such as p/e ratios, the Dow should have been around 6,000. At one point Shiller noted how Glassman and Hassett's claim of a "new era" eerily echoed claims made by market theologists before the 1929 stock market crash. But how did Ben Wattenberg get involved with promoting and taking seriously such nonsense economics? Wattenberg himself has refused to answer any questions for this report. Still, seeing the huge loss to investors in the US due to the collapse of the Dow's speculative bubble, it is relevant to note the importance of confidence men like Glassman, Hassett and Wattenberg in comforting nervous stockholders. This particular show was timed to the release of Glassman and Hassett's "forthcoming" book Dow 36,000, which, Wattenberg noted, would be "provocative." Could the show have had anything to do with the fact that Glassman, Wattenberg and Hassett all make their homes at the AEI? Or the fact that the same three conservative philanthropies that underwrite the production of Think Tank also heavily underwrite the AEI, Wattenberg, Glassman, Hassett, and - surprisingly - even Shiller, who received a $40,000 grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation the same year as the show. Since Think Tank's inception 11 years ago its three most consistent funders [see chart] have been the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation ($980,000), the John M. Olin Foundation ($1,100,000), and the Smith Richardson Foundation ($600,000), [henceforth, BOS]. Think Tank producer New River Media (NRM) has also received other monies from BOS to produce other Ben Wattenberg public television vehicles such as The First Measured Century (TFMS). NRM received at least a quarter million dollars from the Olin Foundation in 1999 for production of TFMS. And though TFMS was sold to the American public as a PBS project, TFMS itself was a project of the AEI, funded with $300,000 from the Bradley foundation in 1998. The philanthropies are not content, either, to just produce programming. They try to ensure, to the degree possible, the actual broadcast and consumption of its product. In 2001 the Bradley foundation gave $15,000 to Maryland Public Television to broadcast Think Tank, which is not on PBS's prime lineup. That same year Bradley also provided $100,000 for the promotion of TFMS, which was also hosted by Wattenberg. Then there's the BOS funding of the American Enterprise Institute itself. All told, since 1985 BOS has granted AEI almost $24 million. Did Wattenberg feel compelled to feature a show about Glassman's new book, no matter how off the mark it turned out to be, because they are part of the same "team"? It's a fair question to ask, but cannot adequately be answered by looking at one episode of a weekly show. For another clue I looked to a seemingly inexplicable set of Think Tank shows that followed The first of the three "Bell Curve" shows aired on October 14, 1994, promising in its opening "A conversation with author and social scientist Charles Murray." Wattenberg then noted that "Sometimes an argument within the scholarly community is so fierce that it spills over into the popular press." Finally, Wattenberg called Murray "One of America's most prominent social scientists." Thus, even before the introduction had finished, Wattenberg had told a string of barefaced lies. First, neither Murray nor his co-author Herrnstein were actual social scientists; Eric Alterman summed up the way The Bell Curve was dishonestly sold in his new book, What Liberal Media?: "A Wall Street Journal news story reported that the book had been 'swept forward by a strategy that provided book galleys to likely supporters while withholding them from likely critics.' The Journal suggested that AEI 'tried to fix the fight when it released review copies selectively, contrary to usual publishing protocol.' Murray and AEI also hand-picked a group of pundits to be flown to Washington at the think tank's expense for a weekend of briefings by Murray and discussion of the book's arguments." Was Wattenberg part of this campaign? There are reasons to believe he was, since he is a principal at the AEI, and his Charles Murray broadcasts coincided with The Bell Curve's release. He dishonestly never mentions this marketing campaign in any of his three shows on the subject. Unsurprisingly, Murray's work was and is paid for by the sponsors of Think Tank; he had received at least $500,000 from the Bradley foundation to write this book, and has received more than $1 million from the foundation since the late 1980s. Does Ben Wattenberg subscribe to the racist and factually wrong views espoused by Murray? It's hard to tell since he won't answer any questions. On the show he expresses few reservations about Murray's main contentions. Even if he had wanted to ignore Murray's work, could Wattenberg have resisted covering a book being marketed with such force and money from within his own institution, by people he was undoubtedly close to, whose paychecks came from the same philanthropies? An avalanche of self promotionAnd so it goes on Think Tank. Time after time the show is used to promote the work product, people and institutions that are sponsored by the show's main underwriters. An avalanche of money has fallen from BOS, onto an array of tax-exempt organizations that employ a like-minded group of people who constitute what I call the BOS Team. The BOS Team has become the de facto home team for PBS and National Public Radio (NPR), if for no other reason than there is no coherent other team. The BOS Team is ubiquitous on shows such as The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, To The Contrary, National Desk, NPR's Talk of The Nation, All Things Considered, and Morning Edition, as well as on Minnesota Public Radio's Midmorning and Midday, and many other public broadcasting vehicles. Invariably these guests "come from nowhere," identified on television and radio only as a "political science professor," or the head of a "non-partisan think tank." It is entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that this preponderance of the BOS Team on PBS stems from a tradeoff made by PBS in the late 1980s Public radio and TV stations are dependent upon monies given to them each year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which is in turn funded by Congress. And though the CPB is technically private, its 10-person board is appointed by the President. In other words, the process of funding public broadcasting is an ongoing political process. Horowitz, who had and has close contacts with congressional Republicans who oversee public broadcasting's federal appropriations, actually created his own sub-organization in the 1980s dedicated to specifically attacking PBS as hostile to conservatives called the Committee On Media Integrity. It could easily be argued that Horowitz's attacks on PBS actually resulted in the birth of Think Tank in 1994. The BOS Team is combined with the rest of the Conservative / Republican establishment to form a dominant voice on shows like Think Tank, and to some degree, in the mainstream media as well. For credibility's sake, a few liberals or progressives are thrown into the mix. But in most cases they are a minority, sometimes just shouted down. In at least one case, a non-BOS Team member has even had his best lines taken out, as happened to George Mason University Professor Roger Wilkins, who had agreed to appear on an early episode of Think Tank. To his horror, Wilkins discovered when watching the show that his most incisive comments had been left on Wattenberg's cutting room floor. "I said to him, 'you gotta be kidding me!'" Wilkins recounted. "I told him I wouldn't be on his show again." One reason Wilkins didn't want to appear on Think Tank again, besides the clear bias presented by the host, was that there was no remuneration for appearing. It's one thing to be treated as a doormat; it's quite another to do so for free. This also plays into the BOS strategy. After all, BOS members are already being paid to do precisely things like appearing on Think Tank. Why should they be paid twice for the same activities? But no one was paying Wilkins or the other non-BOS members to appear on Think Tank. Thus when Wattenberg implored Wilkins to appear on two shows discussing The Bell Curve, Wilkins, who knew that he should do all he could to debunk the pernicious nonsense contained in the book, nonetheless made Wattenberg promise to pay him (a paltry sum, as Wilkins recalls). Wattenberg begged Wilkins to not tell anyone else he had gotten paid. It's worth recalling that the Public Broadcasting Service has specific and relatively strict rules about connections between the funding of shows and the control of the actual content of those shows, lest people or institutions be able to buy their way onto non-commercial public television. Such an important value is this separation of funding from content control that PBS employs the "editorial control" test and the "perception" test. According to the latter test, any programming that can even be perceived as being controlled by the funder would not be permissible under PBS guidelines. To be blunt: Ben Wattenberg, Think Tank, the American Enterprise Institute, and the three funders of Think Tank, the Bradley, Olin and Smith Richardson foundations, are flagrantly breaking these rules. All told, 34 percent of all guests on Think Tank either have grants from one of the three philanthropies with their names on them, or have a major role at an institution that is significantly funded by them. Those 34 percent of the guests actually make up 40 percent of all guest appearances on original Think Tank shows. If Wattenberg is counted as a guest subsidized by the three philanthropies, which he is, the percentage of guest appearances controlled by BOS on original Think Tank episodes rises to 56 percent. Booked upThe most egregious violations of PBS rules by Think Tank involve the tying of episodes to the release of books or reports One book that stands out was The End Of Racism, written by AEI John M. Olin Research Fellow Dinesh D'Souza. He and it were the subject of two separate Think Recently Wattenberg hosted a show titled "The Progress Paradox," with a single guest: Gregg Easterbrook, who had earlier received $135,000 from the Bradley foundation to write a book titled, "Is Life Getting Better?" Last year, Wattenberg hosted a show titled, "Science and Six months earlier another episode was timed to the release A year earlier Think Tank had a show titled, "Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America," Earlier that same year Wattenberg hosted an episode titled "Has Medicine Gone PC?," Sally Satel's Months earlier Wattenberg had hosted a show That same year viewers of Think Tank were asked "Is There a War Against Boys?" This show was timed About a year earlier was a show titled, "Is Business a Calling," which explored a "new book" by scholar Michael Months earlier Wattenberg had his old pal Norman Podhoretz on as a lone guest to discuss his score-settling book published Speaking of the Hudson Institute, in 1997 Wattenberg hosted a show titled "Will There Be a Labor Shortage," that previewed a Hudson Institute report titled Workforce 2000. One of the show's two guests was Richard Judy, a senior research fellow at the Hudson Institute, and co-author of the report. Robert Bork, yet another senior fellow at the AEI, is Wattenberg's favorite guest, having appeared on 10 original episodes. A late 1995 Think Tank show was titled, "The Vision of the Anointed," where "Thomas Sowell [talks] about his new That same year featured a Think Tank episode titled "The New Illustrated Guide of the American Economy," which turns out also to be the name of a "just-published" book by two of Wattenberg's colleagues from the AEI, who are the guests on this show. The "Guide" was published by the AEI Press. The previous year, 1994, a Think Tank episode titled, "Has Feminism Gone Too Far?" promoted the 1994 anti-feminist book "Who Stole Feminism?" by Christina Hoff Sommers. Hoff Sommers would later become a fellow at the AEI, but at the time was a professor at Clark University. However - she had already received $55,000 from the Olin foundation for the creation and promotion of this very book. The big conThough the clandestine marketing of BOS product on Think Tank is indeed a violation of PBS rules, the real goal of the philanthropies is the marketing of their message, which in most cases mirrors the message of the Republican Political Party. Think Tank presents a forum where viewers have no idea of the money behind the institutions and people who appear on the show, thus giving more credibility to the views presented. But a closer look reveals a hijacking of important issues by Think Tank that presents them framed in a way that often includes only BOS / Republican points of view. National securityThe area where Wattenberg and BOS seem most concerned to dominate debates is national security. In a selection of 19 original episodes that discussed national security, 42 of 54 guests - 77 percent - either have received grants from BOS with their names on them, or play significant roles at institutions that are significantly sponsored by BOS. Usually the show titles are couched as questions that beg the obvious (to BOS) answer: "Is Iraq Next?" Yes! "Do We Need a National Missile Defense?" Absolutely! "Should America Go It Alone?" You bet! Ideas that BOS puts on the national and international agenda are treated in decidedly one-sided discussions. The pernicious Samuel Huntington, who is noted as a "Harvard Professor" but has nonetheless gotten more than $5 It's worth noting that Huntington's notions of civilizational conflict are far from unanimous, and are in fact quite controversial. A good case can be made that his conceptualization Another one-sided, BOS-dominated show on national security was titled, "Do We Need A National Missile Defense?" This episode featured as its prime guest Frank Gaffney, director of the Center for Security Policy (CSP), an institution funded by defense contractors and the conservative philanthropies, that has led the lobbying charge for construction of the so-called "National Missile Defense" (NMD). To date those same contractors have received in excess of $17 billion in missile defense research contracts from the federal government. Since 1988 the CSP has received more than $3.6 million from the Bradley, Olin and Scaife foundations. (Not Smith Richardson. The Scaife foundations are controlled by Richard Scaife, and fund many of the same institutions and people funded by BOS. The four foundations together are sometimes referred to as "The Four Sisters," or BOSS.) Since George W. Bush became president, more than 17 members of the CSP advisory board have joined his administration. This particular Think Tank show featured three guests, two of whom were in favor of NMD, both sponsored by BOS, and one who wasn't sponsored by BOS and was not in favor of NMD. Republican politics & ideologyA selection of 23 separate original Think Tank episodes, dominated by BOS-funded guests, focused on Conservative / Republican ideology or politics. All told, 37 of the 52 guests (71 percent) were BOS-funded. One of the earliest Think Tank episodes was titled, "Is The G.O.P. On The Right Track?" Like so many Think Tank shows, the title sentence itself is predicated on questionable value judgments. What would it mean for the GOP to be "On The Right Track" ? That is an inherently political judgment, since the GOP is a political party. Three out of the four guests on this episode were BOS-sponsored, and all spoke of the Republicans in the first person, i.e. speaking as a Republican. Bill Another show along these lines featured Richard Perle, who appeared in a 2002 episode titled, "Richard Perle: The Making of a Neoconservative." Shows that featured current or formerRepublican politicians who are also BOS-sponsored include the 2001 "Mr. Speaker, colleague, thank you so much for joining us. Let's go back and start with that magical year of 1994." What was magical about 1994? That was the year Republicans won control of the US Congress, behind Newt Gingrich and the Heritage Foundation's Contract With America. The Bradley and Olin foundations have combined given the Heritage Foundation more than $20 million since 1985. In the show, Gingrich then goes on to basically credit himself with the Republican triumphs of the past decade. Try telling that to BOS. Other shows reserve the right of BOS to define the history of Republican party politicians, such as the 2000 episode titled, "What is Ronald Reagan's Legacy?" that included three guests, not counting Wattenberg, two of whom are BOS-underwritten. One, Martin Anderson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution (BOS - $14 million since 1985), authored a recent Reagan biography. And, it turns out, surprise, that the two BOS-supported guests, Anderson and Kiron Skinner, also of the Hoover Institution, were working "on a book tentatively titled The Reagan Papers, due out in February of 2001." Economics / tax Policy / marketsWhen the subject turns to economics, over the past two decades Republicans have more or less unanimously stood for lower taxes and sung the praises of the magical "free market." Of a selection of 10 shows about economics, tax policy and/or markets, 26 of the 32 guests - 81 percent - were underwritten by BOS. A 1995 show titled "Some Taxing Ideas," featured four guests, all underwritten by BOS. Two of the guests were from the Hoover Institution, one from the AEI, and the final one, Murray Another show on taxes, actually titled "Taxes," featured three guests, two of whom were/are EducationThink Tank may be at its most dishonest when the subject turns to public education. It is uniformly harshly critical of public education, and endlessly shills for its privatization. Think Tanks' first foray into the education debate was a 1994 episode titled, "Can America's Schools Be Saved?" that featured two out of four guests as BOS-sponsored. Two years later Wattenberg tried to supply an answer to that question with an episode titled "Can School Choice Save Schools?" That show featured three guests, all of them significantly funded by BOS. One, Paul Peterson, was introduced as the "director of the Center for American Paul PetersonPolitical Studies Another guest on this show, Terry Moe, was introduced as being a "senior fellow at the Hoover Institution." Not revealed was $300,000 And so onDozens of other episodes of Think Tank follow these familiar patterns, including shows on race, immigration, various flavors of social policy including crime and punishment, religion and ethics, land use, environmentalism, anti-feminism, etc. In August of 2001 I sent a request to PBS executives asking them to explain how Think Tank adheres to the network's editorial control and perception tests. In other words, how is it that PBS could view the show's content as not controlled by the show's sponsors, BOS. In the PBS response to my inquiry, Laura Nichols, Senior Vice President, Communications and Public Affairs at PBS, wrote that PBS "must respectfully disagree with your conclusion that Think Tank is in violation of PBS's underwriting policies." "...In our judgment, you have presented no evidence to suggest even the perception that any Think Tank underwriter is exerting editorial control over content..." "...The weekly series features a wide range of panelists; no one guest appears on a regular basis." The claim that "no one guest appears on a regular basis" is plainly not true, as I have shown above. The AEI's Robert Bork has appeared on 10 original Think Tank episodes. Norman Ornstein and Michael Novak, also of the AEI, each have been on six times. Douglas Besharov of the AEI has been on five times. All told, 32 separate people from AEI have appeared on Think Tank. Not only are AEI people appearing "on a regular basis," this hidden marketing constitutes a political bias, as well. Consider that President Bush has recently (March 2003) delivered an important foreign policy speech in front of the AEI's annual meeting. In that speech, Bush highlighted how his administration now includes 20 people from the AEI. But PBS' main response was included in the following: "Many of the underwriters you have identified are major foundations and grant-making organizations whose portfolio includes distributing grants to public policy experts, so it is likely that at some point in time a Think Tank guest may have received a grant from, or was somehow associated with, a program underwriter. However, that tenuous connection ... does not make the case that an underwriter exercised editorial control, or that a guest appeared on the series specifically to voice a funder's viewpoint..." "...Think Tank has denied your charges of improper editorial control. The producers and moderator have affirmed that no underwriter has ever asked them to cover any specific topic, nor attempted to offer guidance on guest selections or the way they present the issues they choose to cover." So there you have it: PBS asked the producers and moderator if the show's underwriters had told them who to put on the show, or what issues to cover. The producers and moderator denied that anyone had told them to do such a thing, and, for PBS, the issue is over. With all due respect to Ms Nichols and the executives at PBS, the relationship I have described between Think Tank topics and guests and the three primary funders of the program is not just peripheral contact, as they suggest. In many cases, it is the relationship of patrons and their clients. In the person of Ben Wattenberg, Governor of the Smith Richardson Foundation and host of Think Tank, funder and content are one and the same. On one amazing show in 2002 when Wattenberg interviewed Samuel Huntington, all the people who appeared on the show were on the board of the Smith Richardson Foundation - one of the show's prime funders. Do I really need to point out that no one told Ben Wattenberg who to put on his show, or what issues to cover, because no one had to? To suggest that this is not the funder controlling the content is beyond naïve. When trying to understand how Think Tank stays on the air it's hard to ignore the fact that PBS is dependent for federal funds appropriated by the US Congress, which is currently dominated by Republicans, and that PBS has swayed in the political winds since its inception. Underwriting rules have come to be interpreted in light of the partisan makeup of the federal legislative and executive branches, and the party affiliations and professional aims of current PBS executives. The upshot is that, far from being an alternative to the commercial television networks, PBS has become little more than a battleground for competing traditionally powerful interests. The conservative philanthropies have paid, using tax-exempt monies, to politically bully PBS into showcasing their product. BOS has used and continues to use Think Tank to market people and institutions, which they also underwrite, as a team effort. It is clearly not credible to argue, as PBS has done, that this is not the underwriter controlling the content, and it is downright depressing to read their unserious justifications in defense of the indefensible. sign in, or register to email stories or comment on them.
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MORE ORIGINAL RESEARCHBill Berkowitz PERC receives Templeton Freedom Award for promoting 'enviropreneurs'Right Wing foundation-funded anti-environmental think tank grabbing a wider audience for 'free market environmentalism' On the 15th anniversary of Terry Anderson and Donald Leal's book "Free Market Environmentalism" -- the seminal book on the subject -- Anderson, the Executive Director of the Bozeman, Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center (PERC - formerly known as the Political Economy Research Center) spoke in late-January at an event sponsored by Squaw Valley Institute at the Resort at Squaw Creek in California. While it may have been just another opportunity to speak on "free market environmentalism" and not the kickoff of a "victory tour," nevertheless it comes at a time when PERC's ideas are taking root.
Bill Berkowitz Neil Bush of Saudi ArabiaDuring recent visit, President’s brother describes the country as a 'kind of tribal democracy' In late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country's Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch "said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights." In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as "a kind of tribal democracy."
Bill Berkowitz Newt Gingrich's back door to the White HouseAmerican Enterprise Institute "Scholar" and former House Speaker blames media for poll showing 64 percent of the American people wouldn't vote for him under any circumstances Whatever it is that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has come to represent in American politics, the guy is nothing less than fascinating. One day he's espousing populist rhetoric about the need to cut the costs of college tuition and the next day he's talking World War III. One day he's claiming that the "war on terror" may force the abridgement of fundamental first amendment rights and the next he's advancing a twenty-first century version of his Contract with America. At the same time he's publicly proclaiming how "stupid" it is that the race for the presidency has already started you know that he's trying to figure out how to out finesse Rudy, McCain and Romney for the nomination. And last week, when Fox News' Chris Wallace cited a poll showing that 64 percent of the public would never vote for him, he was quick to blame those results on how unfairly he was treated by the mainstream media back in the day.
Bill Berkowitz American Enterprise Institute takes lead in agitating against IranDespite wrongheaded predictions about the war on Iraq, neocons are on the frontlines advocating military conflict with Iran After doing such a bang up job with their advice and predictions about the outcome of the war on Iraq, would it surprise you to learn that America's neoconservatives are still in business? While at this time we are not yet seeing the same intense neocon invasion of our living rooms -- via cable television's news networks -- that we saw during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, nevertheless, a host of policy analysts at conservative think tanks -- most notably the American Enterprise Institute -- are being heeded on Iran by those who count - folks inside the Bush Administration.
Bill Berkowitz After six years, opposition gaining on George W. Bush's Faith Based InitiativeUnmentioned in the president's State of the Union speech, the program nevertheless continues to recruit religious participants and hand out taxpayer money to religious groups With several domestic policy proposals unceremoniously folded into President Bush's recent State of the Union address, two pretty significant items failed to make the cut. Despite the president's egregiously tardy response to the event itself, it was nevertheless surprising that he didn't even mention Hurricane Katrina: He didn't offer up a progress report, words of hope to the victims, or come up with a proposal for moving the sluggish rebuilding effort forward. There were no "armies of compassion" ready to be unleashed, although it should be said that many in the religious community responded to the disaster much quicker than the Bush Administration. In the State of the Union address, however, there was no "compassionate conservatism" for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Bill Berkowitz Frank Luntz calls Republican leadership in Washington 'One giant whining windbag'On the outs with the GOP, legendary degrader of discourse is moving to California He doesn't make great art; nothing he does elevates the human spirit; he doesn't illuminate, he bamboozles. He has become expert in subterfuge, hidden meanings, word play and manipulation. Frank Luntz has been so good at what he does that those paying close attention gave it its own name: "Luntzspeak."
Bill Berkowitz Spooked by MoveOn.org, conservative movement seeks to emulate liberal powerhouseFueled with Silicon Valley money, TheVanguard.org will have Richard Poe, former editor of David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine as its editorial and creative director As Paul Weyrich, a founding father of the modern conservative movement and still a prominent actor in it, likes to say, he learned a great deal about movement building by closely observing what liberals were up to in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Bill Berkowitz Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action jihadFounder and Chair of the American Civil Rights Institute scouting five to nine states for new anti-affirmative action initiatives Fresh from his most recent victory -- in Michigan this past November -- Ward Connerly, the Black California-based maven of anti-affirmative action initiatives, appears to be preparing to take his jihad on the road. According to a mid-December report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Connerly said that he was "exploring moves into nine other states."
Bill Berkowitz Tom Tancredo's missionThe Republican congressman from Colorado will try to woo GOP voters with anti-immigration rhetoric and a boatload of Christian right politics These days, probably the most recognizable name in anti-immigration politics is Colorado Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo. Over the past year, Tancredo has gone from a little known congressman to a highly visible anti-immigration spokesperson. "Tancredo has thoroughly enmeshed himself in the anti-immigration movement and with the help of CNN talk show host Lou Dobbs, he has been given a national megaphone," Devin Burghart, the program director of the Building Democracy Initiative at the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based civil rights group, told Media Transparency.
Bill Berkowitz Institute on Religion and Democracy slams 'Leftist' National Council of ChurchesNew report from conservative foundation-funded IRD charges the NCC with being a political surrogate for MoveOn.org, People for the American Way and other liberal organizations If you prefer your religious battles sprinkled with demagoguery, sanctimoniousness, and simplistic attacks, the Institute on Religion and Democracy's (IRD) latest broadside against the National Council of Churches (NCC) certainly fits the bill.
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