Month: February 2008

Jim Lobe notes that former Amb. Marc Ginsberg now appears to have resigned from the FDD board of advisers, and expands on his previous posts about the Foundation for Defense of Democracy’s defections:

As Donna Brazile blamed the “influence of their funders” on FDD’s increasingly “radical right-wing” orientation, it might be helpful to list those individuals and institutions that, according to publicly available tax records, have contributed $100,000 or more — sometimes much more — to the group from 2002 through 2005.

Check out the list over at LobeLog.com.

I notice that many of the obituaries of Buckley make a positive mention of his manners and civility. That was often accurate. But one way to judge someone’s real civility is to see how he reacts when he’s losing a debate. Yesterday, I rewatched all of the YouTube videos from when he had Noam Chomsky on in the late 1960s and they discussed, among other things, the Vietnam War. Buckley was often good when he knew more than the person he interviewed, which was often. But Chomsky had a calm command of the facts and Buckley got rattled a lot. One way to respond when you get called out is to admit the point. That was not Buckley’s way. Instead he got belligerent, interrupting Chomsky every time Chomsky tried to respond to the latest Buckley thrust. I challenge anyone to watch those videos and come out thinking well of Buckley’s civility.

I write this as someone who liked Buckley somewhat and was even, for 6 months, the economics editor of National Review who wrote 2 unsigned short editorials every issue (in 1986 and early 1987). And I’m not making a total statement of support for everything Noam Chomsky has written or said. But I do think that the scales must be balanced.

Polls released yesterday and today show that Antiwar congressmen Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are well ahead in their reelection campaigns. Both polls were conducted by Public Policy Polling.

Ron Paul leads his only GOP opponent, Chris Peden, 63-30%. He has no Democratic Party opponent.

Dennis Kucinich leads his Democratic opponents with 55%, over 29% for Joe Cimperman. Three other candidates register 5% or lower.

For an update on the exodus of Democrats from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, see Wednesday’s article by Spencer Ackerman on the new Washington Independent website and a later piece by Isikoff and Hosenball at the Newsweek website. It seems that three other Democrats, including Rep. Eliot Engel and Sen. Chuck Schumer (whom I didn’t mention in Tuesday’s post), have resigned from the group, which last week hastily reorganized its corporate structure — and gave birth to a new organization, Defense of Democracies — to preserve its 501(c)3 status.

Of course, these Democrats are leaving primarily because FDD has become increasingly partisan in its attacks on specific Democratic lawmakers and leadership, not because of its steady drumbeat of Arabo- and Islamo-phobia that has dominated its work since its inception more than six years ago. I still wonder whether the remaining self-described Democrats, such as former Amb. Marc Ginsberg and, most particularly, James Woolsey and Sen. Lieberman (that will be an interesting test), will also desert the FDD. And what about the Democrats associated with the Committee on the Present Danger, an FDD “project?” They include former Reps. Dave McCurdy and Stephen Solarz, and former Amb. Peter Rosenblatt.

May denied to Newsweek that the funding for the controversial ads came from telecom companies, insisted they came from individual donors. I would imagine that the likely suspects include the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) donors to Freedom’s Watch, which has set a goal of raising and spending $250 million this year in support of its agenda. The current ad campaign in support of Bush’s version of the Protect America Act costs $2 million, according to Newsweek.

Visit Lobelog.com for the latest news analysis and commentary from Inter Press News Service’s Washington bureau chief Jim Lobe.