You’ve Got to be Kidding File: Phoenix Group Rises from DNC Ashes

Fair-and-Balanced market maker George Soros is at it again. Hot on the heels of astonishing flim-flammery on campaign finance reform and then exploiting its loopholes to the tune of $23M for 527 groups like MoveOn.org in the last election cycle, the über-billionaire is now orchestrating a build-out of “progressive infrastructure,” which includes a series of think tanks. According to thehill.com:

George Soros told a carefully vetted gathering of 70 likeminded millionaires and billionaires last weekend that they must be patient if they want to realize long-term political and ideological yields from an expected massive investment in “startup” progressive think tanks. The Scottsdale, Ariz., meeting, called to start the process of building an ideas production line for liberal politicians, began what organizers hope will be a long dialogue with the “partners,” many from the high-tech industry. Participants have begun to refer to themselves as the Phoenix Group.

Soros’ assembly of the Phoenix Group appears to be a reaction to the existence of conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the notorious neoconservative Project For the New American Century. These organizations have been given so much credit for their roles in the elections of George W. Bush and their influence on his agenda that liberals are claiming that they need to build a competitive infrastructure in order to gain greater share of voice.

I give these liberals credit for acknowledging the virtual bankruptcy of ideas propagated by the Democratic Party to no avail in the last three national election cycles. It’s clear that their strategy of “Anything But Bush” without a corresponding agenda of their own, precluded the Democratic mantra from resonating with vast swaths of the voting population.

However, while their apparent need to create an “ideas production line” makes me snicker while thinking “No sh*t, it also strikes me as wildly naive and disingenuous. To begin with, such a strategy presumes that such “production lines” don’t already exist. And that’s utter poppycock. Liberal think tanks are just as common and influential as conservative research houses.

In fact, some of the world’s best known think tanks are liberal in orientation. The Brookings Institution was liberal enough to be considered a potential firebombing target by Richard Nixon. Bill Clinton’s Democratic Leadership Council seemed to be very successful in articulating its messages throughout the course of his campaigns and presidency. The Aspen Institute is headed by the liberal former Time Magazine editor, Walter Issacson. The Carter Center, founded by former President Carter and currently chaired by Padres owner John Moores *tear*, is a globally recognized liberal institute. The International Crisis Group lists George Soros himself, along with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Wesley Clarke and former Clinton UN Deputy Ambassador Nancy Soderberg among its ranks. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has been brutal in its analyses of Bush's approaches to addressing WMD worldwide. And these are just a few off the top of my head. This list doesn’t include the myriad social- and union-oriented organizations which influence liberal policy promotion on the domestic side. The problem isn’t the lack of infrastructure. The problem is the lack of resonant ideation coming out of the infrastructure.

So if it’s not the infrastructure, stupid, what is Soros really up to?

Clues to his intentions come later in the article cited above:

The Democracy Alliance will act as a clearinghouse and is expected to channel much of its money to new organizations and existing ones such as John Podesta’s Center for American Progress and David Brock’s Media Matters for America…One source at the DNC with direct knowledge of the agenda said that the Phoenix Group had three specific goals at the outset. It wants to create liberal think tanks, training camps for young progressives and media centers.

Aha! So while there is a “content” angle, there seems to be a significant focus on two areas where Soros has already proven to be very influential: money and media. In fact, it sounds to me like Mr. Soros is preparing to institutionalize his loophole-exploitation of so-called 527 groups by creating more of them. After all, when David Brock is one of the first names mentioned (in connection with a think tank, no less!), you know that something is rotten in Denmark. The title of Rob Stein’s presentation to The Phoenix Group (“The Conservative Message Machine’s Money Matrix”) makes little mention of the Group’s ideological aspirations but makes sure to commit itself to the Ideology of Bling. It seems clear that Soros’ efforts are not about developing new political ideas, but rather, a new form of money-laundering. This, coming from someone who was very influential in the campaign finance reform legislation which spawned 527’s in the first place!

Think tanks and research houses are fully legitimate organizations that serve a vital role in our democracy. But not when they are created for the primary purpose of circumventing the spirit of existing campaign finance legislation. One is even forced to ask if this wasn’t Soros’ intent from the outset.

Interestingly, it has been the Democrats who have loudly questioned the “shady” influence of PNAC and other groups on the Bush agenda. Now they are leveraging their existence for justification to erect an entirely new layer of competitive policy houses. Kind of reminds me of those who used the existence of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh to justify the launch of Air America. The voices of Fox and Rush were but drops amidst an ocean of liberal messaging; extending from network news to Hollywood and NPR and from the majority of metropolitan daily newspapers to college classrooms. Nonetheless, Air America was launched to “counteract” the relatively niche-y (in terms of reach and influence) Foxes, Limbaughs, Hannitys and Coulters. The Phoenix Group’s agenda seems to be similarly disingenuous and Soros’ negotiation of the intricacies of legislation he once championed, sounds increasingly like something that someone somewhere should be investigating.