worth reading

[Bussardre@aol.com]

Bill Berkowitz
January 5,  2006 
Paying to  play
Revelations that Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff bought op-ed pieces  from 
fellows at right wing think tanks should unleash an investigation into two  
decades of so-called research paid for by conservative  philanthropies
"Despite its centrality to political debate,  economic research is a very 
low-budget affair. The entire annual economics  budget at the National Science 
foundation is less than $20 million. What this  means is that even a handful of 
wealthy cranks can support an impressive-looking  array of think tanks, 
research institutes, foundations, and so on devoted to  promoting an economic 
doctrine they like...The economists these institutions can  attract are not exactly 
the best and the brightest...But who needs brilliant, or  even competent, 
researchers when you already know all the answers?" -- Paul  Krugman, Slate, 
August 15, 1996) 
Several  decades ago, when veteran radio news reporter Scoop Nisker closed 
out his  broadcasts by telling his audience that if they didn't like the news 
they should  "go out and make some of your own," little did he imagine that the 
Bush  Administration, and a host of its surrogates, would become masters of 
that  domain. 
Earlier this  year, the public was startled to discover that the Bush 
Administration had been  paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to Black 
conservative columnist and  radio and television talk show host Armstrong Williams to 
flak for the "No Child  Left Behind Act." Those revelations not only called into 
question the columns  and commentaries Williams had produced around Bush's 
education legislative  centerpiece, it also rendered Williams' entire body of 
work suspect. 
At the end  of last month, the New York Times revealed that the Pentagon had 
been  paying Iraqi newspapers to publish "good news" stories about the 
situation in  country; stories that had been generated by the Pentagon itself. 
Political  analyst and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan 
argued, during  a session on MSNBC's Hardball, that "deception, 
misinformation,  disinformation, deceit, [and] propaganda" in times of war was  acceptable. 
Buchanan  pointed out that "the Pentagon and our guys over there have got 
every right to  have good news put into the media and get to the people of Iraq, 
even if it's  got to be planted or bought." 
On Friday,  December 16, another branch from the "pay to play" tree of 
journalism came  crashing to earth. 
Doug Bandow,  a senior fellow at the fiercely libertarian Cato Institute, 
resigned after  BusinessWeek Online revealed that he had been paid ample chunks 
of  change by indicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff to produce columns in  
support of issues of interest to Abramoff and his clients. Many of these 
columns  were related to Indian gambling, and "extol[ing] the virtues of the 
free-market  system" particularly in the Northern Mariana Islands, the New York  
Times reported. . 
After the  Business Week story appeared, Bandow resigned from the Cato 
Institute,  and the Copley News Service -- which syndicated his columns -- suspended 
him,  pending further investigation. 
(In a recent  piece in the New York Times, Philip Shenon described Jack 
Abramoff as  "a major Republican Party fundraiser" who is the "focus of a federal 
corruption  investigation in Washington involving gifts to lawmakers." 
Abramoff, Shenon  wrote, is known to be among the "most generous lobbyists" with an 
uncanny  ability to direct "political contributions to lawmakers who could help 
his  clients.") 
Bandow  apparently accepted as much as $2000 an article, for writing some 12 
to 24  Abramoff-inspired pieces over a several year period beginning in the 
mid 1990s,  BusinessWeek Online reported. 
The story  also named Peter Ferrara, of the Lewisville, Texas-based Institute 
for Policy  Innovation. Ferrara who admitted to receiving money from 
Abramoff, was at first  quite cavalier about the situation: "I do it all the time," he 
said. "I've done  that in the past and I'll do it in the future." 
In its  piece, BusinessWeek Online reported that Tom Giovanetti, the 
president  of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), said that he saw nothing 
wrong  with "pay for play" op eds. 
Within days  both Ferrara and Giovanetti backtracked. In a press release 
dated December 19,  Giovanetti claimed that he had been quoted out of context, 
arguing that the  Institute "has never engaged in what is being called 'pay for 
play' op/eds."  Giovanetti added "to the best of our knowledge, no op/ed ever 
written on an IPI  byline was written either directly or indirectly as a result 
of lobbyist  influence or payment." 
Ferrara also  tried to clarify his position in an IPI official press release 
also dated  December 19: 
For many years, I have had the honor of having my  writing widely published 
on a variety of public policy issues. My writing has  always reflected my free 
market and socially conservative views and philosophy,  without exception. I 
have not nor would I ever take financial support to write  anything that I did 
not think was good public policy or that was against my  economic or social 
philosophy. 
I follow an unqualified policy of not taking money  from lobbyists for 
op-eds, which I established on my own years ago. I rely  solely on financing from my 
foundation employers for financial  support. 
I am glad to ask people to contribute to my work  if they agree with what I 
have been writing for years now and want to support  it. That is what I was 
referring to in the quote in this regard in the  BusinessWeek Online article. 
If I were paid by a newspaper or a syndicator to  write a regular column, I 
could not possibly take money from any outside party  for that work, as that 
would betray the newspaper or syndicator employing me. As  a freelance writer 
who submits individual articles to publications, I must  honestly follow the 
disclosure policies of those publications. These are the  rules I follow. 
I have already acknowledged that, years ago, Jack  Abramoff was among those 
who provided occasional financial support for my work.  Any crimes or unethical 
practices of his do not make anyone he raised money for  or contributed to in 
the past unethical. I have not dealt with or received any  contributions in 
any form from Abramoff for years now. 
With specific regard to the Institute for Policy  Innovation (IPI), a think 
tank with which I am affiliated, I have never written  anything under an IPI 
byline that was financially supported or otherwise  motivated by anyone other 
than IPI. 
Since the  1980s, the political landscape has become thick with conservative 
and  libertarian think tanks. For a time, it seemed that every other week or 
so, yet  another press release announced the establishment of a new think tank 
or public  policy institute. During this period, more than 100 such 
organizations were  founded, staffed and funded. Some appeared to fly-by-night 
operations run by one  person or by a skeleton staff whose sole purpose was to issue 
canned press  releases on the public policy issue of the day. Other 
organizations appeared to  engage in original research and received a substantial amount 
of funding support  from conservative philanthropies and foundations. 
Special  studies, op-ed pieces, and so-called "highly documented" studies, 
covering a  broad swath of conservative/free market issues cascaded forth from 
these  institutions. Similar to the Bush Administration's faith-based 
initiative, where  little attention has been paid to discovering whether these groups 
actually  serve the public better than government agencies, much of the 
information  generated by these think tanks was accepted without much investigation 
into the  substance of their assertions. It appeared that the sheer volume of 
the material  that was generated -- especially when similar-conclusions came 
from different  groups -- was enough for editorial writers, reporters, op-ed 
writers and radio  talk show hosts to spread their findings as gospel. 
"Paying to  play" is not a new phenomenon, nor I suspect, limited to right 
wing think tanks.  However, over the past two decades, conservative 
philanthropists and foundations  have spent their money wisely. 
In the  introduction to its 1996 report titled Buying a Movement: Right Wing 
Foundations  and American Politics, People for the American Way pointed out 
that 
"Each year, conservative foundations channel  millions of dollars into a 
broad range of conservative political organizations.  Their recipients range from 
multimillion-dollar national think tanks to state  policy centers, 
universities, conservative journals, magazines and student  publications, right-wing 
television networks and radio programs, and community  projects. The issue work 
funded by these conservative givers ranges from  military and fiscal policy to 
education funding to health and welfare program  analysis to environmental 
deregulation to libertarian workplace policy, and  more." 
"Conservative foundations have overt political and  ideological agendas and 
invest comprehensively to promote a given issue on every  front. In the words 
of the director of one foundation, the right understands  that government 
policies are based on information from "a conveyer belt from  thinkers, academics 
and activists," and provides funding  accordingly." 
"Indeed, the foundations are supporting the work  at every station on the 
conveyer belt. They fund national conservative "think  tanks" to package and 
repackage conservative issue positions; state think tanks  to lend a local flair 
to these issues; national political groups to lobby in  Washington and shape 
national media coverage; state-based groups to do the same  in the states; 
grassroots organizations to stir up local activism; national and  state media to 
report, interpret and amplify these activities; scholars to  record the history 
of such activities and push the intellectual boundaries of  the issues; 
graduate students to form the next wave of scholarship and movement  leadership; and 
college newspapers to shape the milieu in which America's next  generation of 
political leaders comes to their political awakening." 
Uncovering  the ties -- and the amounts of money involved--between 
researchers and op-eders  at right wing think tanks and industry lobbying groups and /or 
their powerful  political patrons is no easy task. As the New York Times' 
Philip Shenon  recently noted, "Executives in the public relations and lobbying 
industries say  that the hiring of outside commentators to promote special 
interests - typically  by writing newspaper opinion articles or in radio and 
television interviews -  does happen, although it is impossible to monitor since 
the payments do not have  to be disclosed and can be disguised as speaking fees 
and other  compensation." 
Nevertheless, on Friday, December 23, Shenon reported that at least two  
other researchers at the Institute for Policy Innovation -- founded by former  
Texas Republican Congressman Dick Armey in 1987 -- "had relationships with  
industry trade groups. 
On October  25, IPI's Susan Finston wrote an opinion piece for The Financial 
Times  in which "she called for patent protection in poor countries for drugs 
and  biotechnology products." Last month Finston also penned a column that 
appeared  in the European edition of The Wall Street Journal which "called for  
efforts to block developing nations from violating patents on AIDS medicines 
and  other drugs," Shenon reported. 
In both  cases she was identified as a "research associate" at IPI. However, 
according to  Shenon, "Neither mentioned that, as recently as August [she] was 
registered as a  lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers 
of America, the drug  industry's trade group. Nor was there mention of her work 
this fall in creating  the American Bioindustry Alliance, a group 
underwritten largely by drug  companies." 
He also  pointed out that Merrill Matthews Jr.writes for major newspapers 
under the IPI  banner, advocating policies promoted by the insurance industry, 
even though he  is a registered lobbyist for a separate group backed by the 
insurance  giants. 
Given his  previous comments on the matter, it was not surprising to read 
that the  president of IPI told Shenon "Lobbying is not a four-letter word." 
Both Finston  and Matthews deny any wrongdoing. 
While the  reputations of Doug Bandow and Peter Ferrara have been severely 
damaged by the  BusinessWeek Online revelations, investigations into the buying 
and  selling of columnists probably will not end with these two cases 
Just as the  incompetence of former FEMA head Michael Brown led enterprising 
reporters to  look into a host of Bush Administration appointments whose 
qualifications are  suspect, "pay to play" revelations could shed some needed light 
on a much larger  question; the honesty and ethics of the "research" that has 
been produced by  right wing think tanks over the past three decades.Found