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John Bolton and the Corruption of Think Tanks; David Brooks on Conservative Sleaze
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Tuesday, Mar 22 2005, 8:56AM
I have found some more on John Bolton's think tank management controversy. Think tanks are usually organized as 501c3 organizations -- organized for the public good but increasingly they are becoming money laundering operations for lobbyists or corporate consulting shops. It seems that John Bolton helped the National Policy Forum move well down this path.
The National Policy Forum of which John Bolton was President was stripped of its non-profit 501c3 status. Foreign money, mega-conference fundraisers, inappropriate political activity, possibly laundering foreign funds into political activities. John Bolton was an architect of this insidious mess.
Many conservatives have genuine concerns about the management of the United Nation's after the "Oil-for-Food" scandal, even though it's clear that the U.S. delegation to the U.N. knew what was going on.
But Bolton is a guy whose own past management experience and the blurring of legal lines in his own organization sounds a lot like what Bernie Ebbers would have looked for in his team at WorldCom or Ken Lay at Enron.
Here is an excerpt of a much longer brief worth reading:
A decade later Bolton was again entangled in money laundering schemes to support Republican candidates, but this time it involved money channeled from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the Republican Party by way of a "think tank" linked to the Republican National Committee (RNC).In 1995-96 Bolton served as president of the National Policy Forum (NPF), which, according to a congressional investigation, functioned as an intermediary organization to funnel foreign and corporate money to Republicans.
The NPF had been established in 1993 in anticipation of the 1994 general election. Founded by the RNC's chairman Haley Barbour a few months after he assumed the party's chairmanship, the forum was organized as a nonprofit, tax-exempt education institute, although the IRS later ruled that NPF was a subsidiary of the RNC and not entitled to its requested tax-exempt status.
A congressional investigation into foreign money and influence in the 1996 presidential campaign brought to light the role of the NPF, which, according to a minority report of the congressional committee, channeled $800,00 in foreign money into the 1996 election cycle after having also used the same mechanisms to fund congressional races around the country in 1994.
When John Bolton became NPF president in 1995, the forum began organizing "megaconferences" as a hook to raise money for the party. These conferences brought together Republican members of congress, lobbyists, and corporate executives to discuss matters that were frequently the object of pending legislation. An NPF memo laid out the funding strategy: "NPF will continue to recruit new donors through conference sponsorships. ... In order for the conferences to take place, they must pay for themselves or turn a profit. Industry and association leaders will be recruited to participate and sponsor those forums, starting at $25,000."
Today, David Brooks has a stunningly good critique on the corruption of the conservative establishment titled "Masters of Sleaze." Brooks does not mention Bolton, Barbour and the National Policy Forum, but these could easily be other chapters in a David Brooks book on the subject.
Brooks writes:
Back in 1995, when Republicans took over Congress, a new cadre of daring and original thinkers arose. These bold innovators had a key insight: that you no longer had to choose between being an activist and a lobbyist. You could be both. You could harness the power of K Street to promote the goals of Goldwater, Reagan and Gingrich. And best of all, you could get rich while doing it!Before long, ringleader Grover Norquist and his buddies were signing lobbying deals with the Seychelles and the Northern Mariana Islands and talking up their interests at weekly conservative strategy sessions - what could be more vital to the future of freedom than the commercial interests of these two fine locales?
Before long, folks like Norquist and Abramoff were talking up the virtues of international sons of liberty like Angola's Jonas Savimbi and Congo's dictator Mobutu Sese Seko - all while receiving compensation from these upstanding gentlemen, according to The Legal Times. Only a reactionary could have been so discomfited by Savimbi's little cannibalism problem as to think this was not a daring contribution to the cause of Reaganism.
Brooks best punch at the conservative establishment that has embraced sleaze and right-wingism:
As time went by, the spectacular devolution of morals accelerated. Many of the young innovators were behaving like people who, having read Barry Goldwater's "Conscience of a Conservative," embraced the conservative part while discarding the conscience part.
I think Bolton really is in trouble. I'm sending a note to David Brooks today to share this column with him but also to let him know that standing up for better moral performance of our political leadership -- on the right and the left -- is patriotic and important.
John Bolton cut his teeth in the world of big money intrigue that David Brooks describes -- and that makes him the wrong guy to pursue American interests at the United Nations at this point in the UN's history.
-- Steve Clemons
« Previous Article - Allegations of Bolton "Sleaze Schemes" May Change Tenor of Confirmation Debate in Senate: A Scandal Brews?» Next Article - John Bolton: "I Understand What the Chain of Command Is. . ."
Steve,
It's good that Broooks wrote about the corruption of the lobbyists, but why didn't he deal directly with the numerous recent news reports of Delay's ethics violations? It seems to me that Brooks is trying to help distance the Republican leadership from those who have been doing their dirty work.
To paraphrase a certain 'controversial', allegedly overfed director and film-maker, 'I don't recall seeing shareholders referred to in the Constitution'.
When exactly are individuals going to realise that government has stopped being for and by them, and started being for and by MegaCorp LLC? From bankruptcy reform to tort reform to the DMCA, personal freedoms and choices are being usurped in order to keep DC's sleazy and incestuous (Michael Powell anyone?) relationship with the NYSE's favourites intact. I believe Roosevelt explicitly warned against this happening.
With regards to Bolton, as I have mentioned on here previously the only hope for a withdrawn or defeated nomination will be a Kerik-style skeleton in the closet.
Unrelatedly, Juan at informedcomment has a very good assessment of how this Schiavo travesty draws strong parallels with Islamic ideocracies and the concept of 'Hisba', or religious morals overruling personal choice (ie the Egyptian case of a loving couple being forciby divorced by their peers because the man was deemed immoral).
Every day, in every way, the US perplexes, alarms and saddens me. Intervention is a strong word in diplomatic language, but taken in the context of an alcoholic doing harm to himself I wish MI6 would fix your elections much like the CIA fixes dozens of others.
Steve, your work on Bolton is popping up everywhere. You are the lead right now on Wonkette.com. It's a good write-up and funny. Says you have Bolton on the mind all the time.
- - -America Alone, with a Little Help From Taiwan
"Inappropriate political activity, possibly laundering foreign funds into political activities..." Maybe John Bolton's a better fit with the U.N. than originally suspected. Shady think tanks, money channeled from Hong Kong and Taiwan&mdash? It's not quite as compelling as juiced sluggers or midnight congressional votes, but it's a start! Steve Clemons, who sounds like a man obsessed ("I have just run around Manhattan's Central Park this chilly morning and thought about John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz the entire way") has more at his blog, The Washington Note. — GREG BEATO
John Bolton and the Corruption of Think Tanks [The Washington Note]
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Congrats!!
A good and faithful servant.
Mr. Bolton is a credit to his party. Forget about foreign policy, look to the entertainment value of the nominee.
Question: has John Bolton called for the USA to withdraw from the United Nations? No. Has Bolton or Wolfowitz called for the elimination of the World Bank and the IMF and all the UN-related slush fund agencies? No. Has Bush or Condi? No.
But change is stirring in the air.
I think Bolton would make a fine final US ambassador to the UN madhouse before we dismantle that thing, strip the non-US citizen employees of diplomatic immunity and give them 1 day to get out of the USA.
#1 The United Nations' membership is incompatible with the US Constition, which Americans are governed by. #2 Due to the nature of the UN's membership, 25% military dictatorships, 28% "partly free" according to Freedom House, the United Nations cannot be reformed, repaired, redeeded, or "made relevant." I left out the socialists and the America-haters, who hated the USA even under Clinton.
Orange juice is not for breakfast anymore and hating the UN is not just for the John Birchers anymore. It has gone mainstream and that is the real takeaway from current events. The UN is now firmly in the crosshairs of the conservative movement and that does not bode well for the existence of that institution. Good.
Example: that silly Bolton video. Every Republican who sees that laughs and says that's exactly what he or she thinks. Bolton actually believes in US sovereignty and thinks he works for the USA and not some corrupt world government. As far as I can tell, the group that put that clip up is the UN's de facto political action committee and they just can't comprehend the demise of their organization. Not yet, but we are working on it.
Robert Morrow >"...The United Nations' membership is incompatible with the US Constition..."
care to provide some logic behind that statement ?
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." - Mark Twain
The illegitimcacy of the UN under US law:
>>>>Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." - Mark Twain<<<
I stopped wondering a long time ago. I go with the latter choice.
If Morrow and his friends succeed in demolishing the U.N. do they have a replacement in mind? If the replacement is U.S. military hegemony, are they planning to revive the draft and excess profits taxes?
The criticism of Bolton is well and good and should be expanded. However, as a citizen of Mississippi, I think someone should open up with a new can of worms on Governor Haley "KKK" Barbour's NPF and its under-the-table dealings in a foreign loan from Hong Kong businessman, Ambrous Tung Young, where the roots of the scandal are found.
The greatest one event that should happen for the benefit of Mississippians is for Mississippi's Barbour and Mississippi's Ebbers to become cellmates together for a long, long time in a federal prison.
Barbour, Ebbers and Bolton all cellmates together sounds like a winner to me.
Al Bratton
Making Bolton U.N. Ambassador is like putting Jeffrey Dahmer in charge of a boy scout troup.
The three-pronged Bu$h strategy for Fascism:
Bolton weakens U.N. and increase U.S. global political dominance; Wolfowitz hijacks World bank & spreads U.S. economic dominance; Negroponte turns intelligence agencies into death squads.
Get ready!
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