This
is an article in Powerline
by John Hinderaker. It was posted to Facebook by Jack
Cashill. Nothing here will surprise anyone, just reinforce what
we already know.
Der Christmas Skoonj
The Washington Post Responds To Me, and I Reply to the Post
On Thursday, the Washington Post published an article by Steven Mufson
and Juliet Eilperin titled “The biggest lease holder in Canada’s oil
sands isn’t Exxon Mobil or Chevron. It’s the Koch brothers.” The
article’s first paragraph included this claim:
The biggest lease holder in the northern Alberta oil sands is a
subsidiary of Koch Industries, the privately-owned cornerstone of the
fortune of conservative Koch brothers Charles and David.
The theme of the article was that the Keystone Pipeline is all about
the Koch brothers; or, at least, that this is a plausible claim. The
Post authors relied on a report by a far-left group called
International Forum on Globalization that I debunked last October.
So Thursday evening, I wrote about the Post article here. I pointed out
that Koch is not, in fact, the largest leaser of tar sands land; that
Koch will not be a user of the pipeline if it is built; and that
construction of the Keystone Pipeline would actually be harmful to
Koch’s economic interests, which is why Koch has never taken a position
on the pipeline’s construction. The Keystone Pipeline, in short, has
nothing whatsoever to do with the Koch brothers.
My post garnered a great deal of attention, and Mufson and Eilperin
undertook to respond to it here. It isn’t much of a response: they
don’t deny the truth of anything I wrote, and they don’t try to sustain
the proposition that Koch is even in favor of the pipeline, let alone
the driving force behind it. They lamely suggest that if Koch leased 2
million acres, rather than 1.1 million as they reported on Thursday,
then Koch might be the largest leaseholder. But they make no attempt to
respond to the official Province of Alberta maps that I posted, which
clearly show that Canadian National Resources, Ltd., for example,
leases more acreage than Koch.
The Post’s response attempted to explain “Why we wrote about the Koch
Industries [sic] and its leases in Canada’s oil sands.” Good question!
What’s the answer?
The Powerline article itself, and its tone, is strong evidence that
issues surrounding the Koch brothers’ political and business interests
will stir and inflame public debate in this election year. That’s why
we wrote the piece.
So in the Post’s view, it is acceptable to publish articles that are
both literally false (Koch is the largest tar sands leaseholder) and
massively misleading (the Keystone Pipeline is all about Koch
Industries), if by doing so the paper can “stir and inflame public
debate in this election year?” I can’t top Jonah Goldberg’s comment on
that howler:
By this logic any unfair attack posing as reporting is worthwhile when
people try to correct the record. Why not just have at it and accuse
the Kochs of killing JFK or hiding the Malaysian airplane? The
resulting criticism would once again provide “strong evidence that
issues surrounding the Koch brothers’ political and business interests
will stir and inflame public debate in this election year.”
Let me offer an alternative explanation of why the Washington Post
published their Keystone/Koch smear: 1) The Washington Post in general,
and Mufson and Eilperin in particular, are agents of the Left, the
environmental movement and the Democratic Party. 2) The Keystone
Pipeline is a problem for the Democratic Party because 60% of voters
want the pipeline built, while the party’s left-wing base insists that
it not be approved. 3) The Keystone Pipeline is popular because it
would broadly benefit the American people by creating large numbers of
jobs, making gasoline more plentiful and bringing down the cost of
energy. 4) Therefore, the Democratic Party tries to distract from the
real issues surrounding the pipeline by claiming, falsely, that its
proponents are merely tools of the billionaire Koch brothers–who, in
fact, have nothing to do with Keystone one way or the other. 5) The
Post published its article to assist the Democratic Party with its
anti-Keystone talking points.
Which frames a very interesting contrast. The Keystone Pipeline is by
no means the only energy-related controversy these days. “Green” energy
is also highly controversial. “Green” energy is controversial, in part,
because, unlike the Keystone Pipeline, it harms the consumer: solar and
wind energy are inefficient, and therefore raise energy costs to
consumers. “Green” energy is also controversial because it harms
taxpayers: because they are inefficient, solar and wind energy can
survive only through taxpayer-funded subsidies. Further, the federal
government has invested in numerous “green” energy projects that have
gone bankrupt, sticking taxpayers with the tab. Solyndra is only one of
a number of such debacles.
“Green” energy is also controversial because it has been used to enrich
government cronies. Let’s take, for instance, the billionaire Tom
Steyer. Steyer has made much of his fortune by using his government
connections to secure support for uneconomic “green” energy projects
that have profited him, to the detriment of consumers and taxpayers.
See, for example, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. As is
explained here, Tom Steyer is a bitter opponent of the Keystone
Pipeline. His financial interests, in “green” energy and perhaps also
in pre-pipeline oil sources like BP, stand to benefit if Keystone is
killed.
Haven’t heard much about Tom Steyer, you say? Maybe that’s because he
isn’t heavily involved in politics. Heh–just kidding. Steyer, as you
probably know, is one of the biggest donors to the Democratic Party and
its candidates. This year, he has pledged to contribute $100 million to
the campaigns of Democratic candidates, as long as they toe the line on
environmental issues–which includes, presumably, taxpayer support for
“green” energy and opposition to Keystone.
So the Post could have written a very different story about the
Keystone Pipeline. The Post could have written that opposition to the
pipeline is being funded in large part by a billionaire who has a
personal financial interest in the pipeline not being built. And that’s
not all! The billionaire is a political crony who has used his
connections in Washington to get rich and to fleece consumers and
taxpayers. Now, with Keystone, he is doing it again! How is that for a
story that would “stir and inflame public debate in this election year”?
The Post, of course, didn’t write that story. But the Post has written
about Tom Steyer. Not only that–what a coincidence!–Juliet Eilperin has
written about Steyer. In this February 2013 puff piece, to which Mufson
also contributed, she promoted Steyer’s campaign to be named Energy
Secretary:
John Podesta, who chairs the liberal think tank Center for American
Progress, said Steyer has “got the right skill set, the understanding
and attitude to lead an energy transformation in this country.”
“I think he would be a fabulous choice for energy secretary,” Podesta
added, “and I’ve let my friends in the administration know that.”
Here is a thought experiment: imagine Juliet Eilperin writing about a
campaign to get Charles Koch named Secretary of Energy. Eilperin went
on to describe a public appearance by Steyer in glowing terms:
On Sunday, he spoke to a crowd that organizers estimated at 35,000,
gathered on the Mall to call for a stronger national climate
policy.“I’m not the first person you’d expect to be here today. I’m not
a college professor and I don’t run an environmental organization,” he
said. “For the last 30 years I’ve been a professional investor and I’ve
been looking at billion-dollar investments for decades and I’m here to
tell you one thing: The Keystone pipeline is not a good investment.”
The move stems from an uncomfortable conclusion Steyer has reached: The
incremental political victories he and others have been celebrating
fall well short of what’s needed to avert catastrophic global warming.
There is lots more, all of it adoring. Of course, neither Steyer nor
Eilperin mentioned that killing Keystone, capping carbon emissions and
so on would all benefit Steyer financially.
So we have a contrast that couldn’t be clearer: the Washington Post
published a false story about support for Keystone because it fit the
Democratic Party’s agenda. It covered up a similar, but true story
about opposition to the pipeline (and about “green” politics in
general) because that, too, fit the Democratic Party’s agenda. I don’t
think we need to look any further to connect the dots.
And yet, a still deeper level of corruption is on display here. Juliet
Eilperin is a reporter for the Washington Post who covers, among other
things, environmental politics. As I wrote in my prior post, she is
married to Andrew Light. Light writes on climate policy for the Center
for American Progress, a far-left organization that has carried on a
years-long vendetta against Charles and David Koch on its web site,
Think Progress. Light is also a member of the Obama administration, as
Senior Adviser to the Special Envoy on Climate Change in the Department
of State. The Center for American Progress is headed by John Podesta,
who chaired Barack Obama’s transition team and is now listed as a
“special advisor” to the Obama administration. Note that Ms. Eilperin
quoted Podesta, her husband’s boss, in her puff piece on Tom Steyer.
Oh, yes–one more thing. Guess who sits on the board of the Center for
American Progress? Yup. Tom Steyer.
This kind of incest is common in Washington. You can’t separate the
reporters from the activists from the Obama administration officials
from the billionaire cronies. Often, as in this instance, the same
people wear two or more of those hats simultaneously. However bad you
think the corruption and cronyism in Washington are, they are worse
than you imagine. And if you think the Washington Post is part of a
free and independent press, think again.
