Is The New York Times’ Ross Douthat a shill for Tea Bagging Sugar Daddy’s, David and and Charles Koch?
In his column today, “Paranoid About Paranoia”, Douthat tries to downplay legitimate concerns about violent Tea Party rhetoric. He attempts to do so by having a professor say the movement is no worse or more paranoid than other movements — particularly liberal ones.
But as the George Mason law professor Ilya Somin has noted, national opinion polls reveal support for numerous far-out or noxious-seeming notions.
In spinning the Tea Party’s inexcusable behavior, it was interesting that Douthat chose to quote a professor from George Mason University. Here is what New York Magazine said about the link between the university and the Tea Party’s secretive billionaire founders:
David and Charles both actively support Republican causes. Charles founded the conservative think tank the Cato Institute. Charles also funds an academic center at George Mason University called the Mercatus Center, founded by a free-market economist named Richard Fink. A 2004 Wall Street Journal article reported that out of 23 government regulations on the Bush administration’s “hit list” that got killed or modified, fourteen had been suggested by Mercatus.
Hmmm.
Douthat could presumably have found a professor to help him make his case from hundreds of colleges and universities. Yet, he chose the one major school that is funded to the gills by the Tea Party’s founders.
This could happenstance. Or, maybe I’m just being paranoid, as Douthat might suggest.
But, it does raise legitimate questions about the jounralistic independence of Douthat. Does he work for the Billionaire Brothers — or the New York Times? We will be watching his column closely to see what sources he uses to make his rather flimsy arguments, and to note if his sources present a conflict of interest with the subject matter.
Clearly, quoting professors from what has essentially become Tea Party U., without identifying the funding link to Koch was poor journalism and did a disservice to readers.
Do you communicate with Douthat or the Times about things like this? Does anyone point out the the Times that this clown Douthat consistently publishes yellow journalism, denies fact, and uses biased “research”? He is a colossal a*****e.
Ilya Somin may work at George Mason, but is he actually working for Mercatus Center (what the Koch brothers are funding)? If so, you may have a point. Otherwise, calling the entire university a “tea party shill” (and inferring this about ALL professors who teach there) just because one research center there is funded by the Koch brothers is a bit hyperbolic.
I don’t agree at all, Mike. To think that the pressure to parrot a certain point of view or party line can only be contained to the Mercatus Center is wishful thinking. Anyone who has ever raised money knows that the person receiving the money is beholden to the donor.
Do you really think that the thin separation of different departments would shield professors from the pressure to not alienate a billionaire donor?
Somin may be independent — or maybe not.
But, no one can question that the entire school, and its staff are tainted by this gross conflict of interest. Thus, no one from George Mason should be commenting on Tea Party or tax issues without the caveat that the school is pumping out Koch propaganda.
So, yes, Mike, all such information that comes from George Mason should come with an asterisk — like a baseball player breaking home run records while on steroids. The Koch money, in this case, is the steroids.
Yes.