The Koch Brothers Pity Party

[ProSense]

The Koch Brothers Pity Party

By Ed Kilgore

Need a quick boost to your blood pressure? If so, I strongly recommend that you read the Wall Street Journal op-ed today penned by former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who holds a bizarre pity party for his law clients the Brothers Koch...Olson claims the president and his sinister henchmen have placed Charles and David Koch, innocent “private citizens,” at the top of an “enemies list” of people to be defamed, harassed and destroyed in the pursuit of he president’s re-election. He also compares the Kochs to the victims of McCarthyism in a passage that would have greatly amused the Kochs’ late father, a founder and mainstay of the John Birch Society.

How could this happen, Olson wonders, to these productive citizens, employers of many thousands, and generous philanthropists? Here’s the thing:

Their biggest offense, apparently, is that they also contribute generously to nonprofit organizations that promote personal liberty and free enterprise, and some of those organizations oppose policies advocated by the president.

I bow in admiration to the craftsmanship with which Olsen turns the Kochs’ vast, unprecedented empire of political agitprop, special-interest lobbying, and campaign skullduggery into a wonkish set of policy preferences...I do not have remotely the space for a documented analysis of the scope, reach, power, and sheer viciousness of the Koch’s many political projects, but would refer you as a starting point to the 2010 New Yorker profile by Jane Meyer, and this illustrative quote:

Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said, “The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.”

On issues ranging from climate change to health reform to tax policy to corporate regulation, in venues far and wide from Congress to state legislatures to Tea Party rallies to every foot of nearly every campaign trail, the Kochs have become an omnipresent force in right-wing politics, and a big factor in the polarization of the country. With the collapse of campaign finance rules, their ability to wield influence with little or no accountability is becoming almost unlimited. Even if you agree with them on every conceivable issue, the idea that they are cowering victims of the big-bad-bullies in the White House has to make you just burst out in derisive laughter. If I, God forbid, were a Koch Brother I’d fire Olson instantly for making me look so weak and feckless.

But that’s how they roll at the opinion pages of the WSJ. It’s just shameless.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_02/the_koch_brothers_pity_party035140.php

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t

[Kurmudgeon]

2. Aggravating whole states at you like Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere may have something to do with it.

[aquart]

3. That's not Obama's list. That's MY list.

[polly7]

4. Well they are at the top of one list

Online voters gave them top spot as the most abusive corporation of 2011.

1. Koch Industries Inc.

http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/corporatehallofshame

"Was it the role Koch played in attempting to deprive public employees of collective bargaining rights? Or the dollars it spent promoting climate change denial? Either way, the energy giant swept this year’s voting for the worst corporation.

[muntrv]

5. Teddy Olsen sucks Koch.

[bluestate10]

6. I wipe my fanny with Koch brothers toilet paper, to support the Union workers that make it.

I would gladly send the Kochs some samples that I no longer want to have around.