Thursday, February 13, 2014

From Hell

From somehow prevailed. His book’s acknowledgments list only sixteen politicians but identify twenty people “whose support and generosity…made the DLC story possible.” Among them are Jon Corzine, the disgraced financier and former New Jersey governor; Michael Steinhardt, a hedge fund manager, major Republican donor and founder of the defunct neoconservative New York Sun newspaper; and Rich Richman, who recently gave $10 million to Columbia University for a research center directed by R. Glenn Hubbard, former chair of George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors. (A Newsweek investigation in 2000 turned up some DLC underwriters that From doesn’t mention: Du Pont, Philip Morris, Merck and the Koch brothers.) On the subject of fundraising, the author proves defensive: “We did raise a lot of corporate money, but there were never any quid pro quos, implicit or explicit. When creating the structure of the DLC, I had purposely created a firewall between those who gave money and those who made organizational decisions.” But isn’t that precisely the evidence for the indictment? Steinhardt and others gave anyway, and kept giving, trusting that the return on investment would be worth it without any intervention on their part being necessary.
Rick Perlstein demolishes the odious DLC founder Al From's memoir.
From somehow prevailed. His book’s acknowledgments list only sixteen politicians but identify twenty people “whose support and generosity…made the DLC story possible.” Among them are Jon Corzine, the disgraced financier and former New Jersey governor; Michael Steinhardt, a hedge fund manager, major Republican donor and founder of the defunct neoconservative New York Sun newspaper; and Rich Richman, who recently gave $10 million to Columbia University for a research center directed by R. Glenn Hubbard, former chair of George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors. (A Newsweek investigation in 2000 turned up some DLC underwriters that From doesn’t mention: Du Pont, Philip Morris, Merck and the Koch brothers.) On the subject of fundraising, the author proves defensive: “We did raise a lot of corporate money, but there were never any quid pro quos, implicit or explicit. When creating the structure of the DLC, I had purposely created a firewall between those who gave money and those who made organizational decisions.” But isn’t that precisely the evidence for the indictment? Steinhardt and others gave anyway, and kept giving, trusting that the return on investment would be worth it without any intervention on their part being necessary.

Not just another grifting corporatist shill, one of the all-time worst. 

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