Koch

Billionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne  David H. Koch, slated to be celebrated for his boons to humanity at the November 5 “American Voices” gala by the New York City Opera,  is namechecked in this month’s Rolling Stone.

The article, “The Lie Machine,” details how this summer’s “spontaneous” demonstrations against health care reform “were tightly orchestrated from the top down by corporate-funded front groups as well as top lobbyists for the health care industry.” 

Call it the return of the Karl Rove playbook: The effort to mobilize the angriest fringe of the Republican base was guided by a conservative dream team that included the same GOP henchmen who Swift-boated John Kerry in 2004, smeared John McCain in 2000, wrote the script for Republican obstructionism on global warming, and harpooned the health care reform effort led by Hillary Clinton in 1993.

And what do they say about the namesake of the structure La Cieca will continue to call The New York State Theater?

Americans for Prosperity, which has taken the lead in the current fight against reform, is a front group for oil billionaires David and Charles Koch, co-owners of the world’s largest private oil and gas conglomerate. The Kochs, who provide much of AFP’s budget, have a strange affinity for mock uprisings: Matt Schlapp, one of the original “Brooks Brothers rioters” — the GOP activists who disrupted the Bush-Gore recount in Miami-Dade County — now serves as director of federal affairs for Koch Industries, orchestrating the firm’s political efforts in Washington.

To head Americans for Prosperity, the brothers tapped Tim Phillips, one of the Republican Party’s most notorious dirty tricksters. Phillips served as a strategic consultant to George W. Bush in 2000 and reputedly took part in the smear campaign in South Carolina that portrayed John McCain’s adopted daughter as his mulatto love child. That same year, Phillips was linked to a nearly identical smear campaign in Virginia that portrayed the primary opponent of Rep. Eric Cantor — a Jew — as the “only Christian in the contest.”

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