View source for Court Libertarians on Parade

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[[Category:Cato Institute]]
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{{DES | des = Cato Unhinged attributes the CATO/Koch infighting to Ed Crane badmouthing David Koch.  In addition, a scathing description of the underhanded political machinations of a supposedly "pure" organization. | show=}}
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Well, well. David Koch has decided to spill the beans about his increasingly testy lawsuit against the Cato Institute, and it ain't pretty.

It's full of unusual gusto for the typically tight-lipped Koch Empire, and much of it of course is PR. But one of David's more damning charges pins last year's (in)famous New Yorker by Jane Mayer about the Brothers Koch squarely on Ed Crane, the CEO of Cato. Mr. Crane, it would now appear, was the anonymous "top Cato Institute official" who offered up unpleastantries about the Kochs to Mayer on a silver plate.

So why is this revelation important? We'll get to that in a moment, but first let's establish something about Cato's side of the current lawsuit PR war. As may be observed here and here, Boss Crane & Co. have staked their entire defense of Cato on the charge that Koch control = Bad News, because the Kochs allegedly want to make the ideologically white-as-snow "libertarian" Cato Institute into an arm of the Republican Party in order to defeat Obama in November.

There are many obvious faults in Crane's argument. The line about defeating Obama doesn't exactly mesh with the Kochs' now-revealed offer to put off the suit until after the election, which Crane himself rebuffed. Crane also doesn't have a decent answer as to why the "Republican" Koch name taints Cato's "independence" but there's no reason to be worried about all those other anonymous multimillionaire donors (hint: his name begins with George and ends with Soros) who are threatening to "pull the plug" if the Kochs prevail in court. But above all, there's the matter of hypocrisy because Cato's board is stuffed full of hackish Republican Party bigwigs and has been. For decades.

Hell, Ed Crane put Rupert Murdoch on the board of Cato in 1997, and he sat there until at least the early 2000's. I'll repeat that. Ed Crane put Rupert "Mr. Fox News" Murdoch, the official media empire mogul of the Republican Party, on Cato's Board of Directors. So cry me a river, Ed, if you're suddenly worried about Koch-backed GOP infiltration coming from some little known Republican campaign floozie addition to the Cato board. Not to be outdone, Cato's own staff has a long track record of making campaign donations to such "libertarian" luminaries as George W. Bush, Rudolph Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John Warner, William Weld, John Thune, Evan Bayh, Johnny Isakson, and the Republican PAC "Club for Growth." Cato also seems to have a fetish for the king of special interest influence-peddling himself, Big Ben Bernanke. But remember, Cato's an ideologically pure "libertarian" organization, right?

Well not exactly, and therein lies the importance of David Koch's revelation. The Cato Institute is what could justly be called a "Court Libertarian" outfit. Sure, they describe themselves as "libertarians" and may even personally are that philosophical label. But Cato's real game is exercising political influence in the upper levels of the Federal City, all this recent claptrap & crap about their supposed "independence" notwithstanding. They're all about hobnobbing with the Washington D.C. power elite as in the aforementioned Murdochs and Bernankes and Bushes, as well as their counterparts on the left be it the Soros-backed Center for American Progress or left wing hipster "journalists" (or should I say Journo-lists?) like Ezra Klein. Same goes for his pimply neocon foil Jamie Kirchick, or their mutual "libertarian" token and journalistic errand boy David Weigel.

So what does a Court Libertarian do? He ingratiates himself into the halls of power by passing himself off as a "respectable" voice of libertarian philosophy, contrasted with all those other crazy radical anarcho-capitalist libertarian types in the flyover states. He offers up peripheral window dressing policy advice to the filthy, corrupt, and anti-libertarian federal government and pats himself on the back for this purported accomplishment. And he's always ready to provide a soundbyte to the mainstream media differentiating his own "respectable" type of Court Libertarianism from the rest of us out in the hinterlands who support things that might actually change (and therefore threaten) the big government status quo.

This is precisely what Cato types have spent the last two presidential elections doing to Ron Paul - that is to say undermining him and second guess him and even spreading nasty rumors about him at every turn in every media outlet to juxtapose against their own "cosmopolitan" and "respectable" though ultimately empty brand of Court Libertarianism. 

Ever notice how Ed Crane, David Boaz, or some other anonymous "high-ranking Cato official" is always on hand to drop a soundbyte dismissing Paul, or chastising him for old newsletters? Well the previously immune Brothers David and Charles Koch just got the "Ron Paul Treatment" from the "respectable" headquarters of Court Libertarianism in downtown D.C. and that, dear friends, is the fountainhead of this lawsuit.}}