An incredible story bringing more shame upon American journalism.

Forget journalism, it couldn't have happened to a nicer think tank :)

Hey ... aren't Cato libertarians supposed to argue that the marketplace always produces the fairest results for society?

ROTFLMFAO !

Bob

Aww jeez. I remember the preGannon/Guckert days, when 'media whore' was a metaphore...
And given the Cato Institute's rigid free market stance, it stands to reason that they have vendable editorial whores, er, writers standing by to blovate on payment...

At the Lack of Principles Office:

"Oh, yes, everything is rosy in America! Why? [years of nonesense ignored-ed] And, because I get paid to say that! Just didn't want you to know that last bit. Sorry. Can I go now?"

Hey ... aren't Cato libertarians supposed to argue that the marketplace always produces the fairest results for society?

Cato libertarians have consistently argued that there is nothing wrong with prostitution.

Yeh, but are prostitutes paying the Cato Institute to take that position? Er, something like that...

Was the knee surgery because he just got knee-capped for admitting this?

Damn, parrot, you win.

I think as long as the payments go to Cato directly, this business is quite all right in their view. Can't have the underlings stealing from the big boss.

BTW - This whole scandal is just a more direct way of doing what the right wing has been doing for the last 20 years. Buying opinion and shoving it into the media as somehow credible.

Lots of really rich right-wingers pour millions into Cato, AEI, Heritage, Manhattan Institute, etc. All these don't do much real research, but house lots of writers who write up lots of treatises coming up with pretty good sounding arguments about why rich guys should keep more of their money.

And because they work for alleged think-tanks, they get published in the Post, Times and lots of other media.

How we have examples of some of the donors cutting out the middle man and just paying these writers themselves. Seems to me that a lot of them wouldn't see what the big difference was.

Plus they subsidize conservative campus publications like the Dartmouth Review to train all these wise-asses in training wheels.

These republicans are making me a big fan of Capital Punishment. Don't end it, mend it (to include this kind of unamerican crap).

Good points Mr. Knight. I would only add the 'conservative' organizations have also cleverly utilized C-SPAN to spread their message/lies via cable television. The so-called liberal orgs, like the Brookings Institute, which is really based on pragmatism not liberalism, have been squeezed out by these other disingenuous orgs. I hope Cato is completely smeared by this revelation.

What a lovely holiday present it would be, if Stephen Moore was next.

Brian Lamb has far more from the right tanks than Brookings.
Not only are they on C-Span more, but speeches at AEI are on regularly.

Bandow's tripe has been appearing here in The Japan Times for years. I always thought he was a shill. But apparently not just metaphorically.

Well said. I totally agree with you. The point you are making here does make sense.

This "ten year lapse in judgment" reminds me of the Henry Hyde's excuse after a story about a years-long affair he'd had was exposed during the Clinton impeachment. Hyde was a tireless persecutor of Clinton, but was rather embarrassed when news came out that he'd had a five or six year long affair while he was married. Hyde, who was in his 70s at the time, blamed it all on a "youthful indiscretion" -- a youthful indiscretion that occurred for six years while he was in his 40s.