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Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it’s nice to find out for yourself.
Rumor has it Washington lobbyists will represent anyone for the right price. Anyone? Journalist Ken Silverstein, the author of Turkmeniscam: How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship, wanted to find out for himself. Turns out, money buys a lot of lobbying.
Most people don’t realize that foreign countries routinely and openly pay American lobbyists to influence US foreign policy. It’s a multi-million dollar industry. Yet, so far, little is known about how these lobbyists ply their trade in the halls of power.
Lobbyists are notoriously secretive about their work. Obviously, they weren’t going to spill their high-priced secrets to a the Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine. So, Silverstein contrived a simple but elegant ruse to gain entry to the inner sanctums of the Washington lobbying establishment: posing as a potential client.
He chose the pseudonym "Kenneth Case," an homage to singer Neko Case.
Silverstein approached major international lobby shops disguised as a representative of a shadowy cartel with ties to the government of Turkmenistan. The Malden Group, as the cartel was known, was deliberately given all the hallmarks of an organized crime syndicate.
The Maldon Group wanted help burnishing Turkmenistan’s image as a human-rights-loving democracy. In fact, it is a repressive dictatorship. Many of the lobbyists Silverstein spoke to were experts on Central Asia, so they had few illusions about the facts on the ground.
Silverstein wondered if the lobbyists would reject his overtures out of hand. Surely either he or Turkmenistan would seem too sketchy.
To his amazement, most lobbyists launched into elaborate capabilities presentations. The APCO lobby shop offered to set up a Turkmenistan seminar at the Heritage Foundation where APCO’s handpicked "experts" could hold forth. Such an event might give rise to a paper that could even be inserted into the Congressional Record by one of APCO’s friendly congressmen. Another option would be to pay The Economist or Roll Call about $25,000 to host a "Turkmenistan Day"–it would cost more, they said, but in return Ken Case would get more control over the content of the forum, plus the imprimatur of an "independent" media outlet.
Lobbyists also pitched 24/7 "crisis management," official visits, media relations, junkets for politicians and the press, planted op/eds, and more. One influence peddler even suggested organizing a Turkmenistan caucus in the House.
The results of Silverstein’s investigation were published in Harper’s. It was a blockbuster: Lobbyists hired by foreign dictatorships could routinely buy influence with the U.S. the foreign policy establishment.
Ironically, the journalistic community was more interested in Silverstein’s ethics than his revelations about a Stalinist kleptocracy paying to shape American foreign policy.
Undercover reporting has a long and distinguished history in American journalism, but the practice has fallen out of favor in recent years. Silverstein was widely criticized by other journalists for using deception to get his story. He argues, persuasively, that deception is permissible if the story is important and can’t be gotten any other way.
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Ken, Welcome to the Lake.
Lindsay, Thank you for Hosting today’s Book Salon.
It’s my pleasure to extend a warm welcome to Ken Silverstein, author of Turkmeniscam.
ok, i am technologically slow but i think i’ve got this right. thanks for the nice introduction and happy to be here. fore away with any questions.
You may know Ken as Harper’s Washington editor and blogger at Washington Babylon.
Ken, can briefly describe how the foreign lobbying industry works? For example, who hires these lobbyists? What kinds of things do they want?
well, lots of countries and foreign companies hire lobbyists, but the more controversial the client, frequently the more you have to pay. so in the case of turkmenistan, a stalinist regime, the lobbyists i met with were asking or anywhere between $500,000 to $1.5 million annually. countries that hire lobbyists want a # of things: sometimes foreign aid or economic loans, but often just general image enhancement and a nice photo-op at the white house. in general, controversial govts are looking for better tis with the US govt, and a better image with the american public
better ties, i meant to say
Ken welcome to FDL. I have not had a chance to read your book but do re-collect when the original reporting first hit the news.
Sounds like Garry Trudeau wasn’t that far off in his portrayal of “Uncle Duke’s” lobbying company in Doonesbury.
How much of an impact would you say this lobbying activity has on US foreign policy? What are some key decisions that may have been swayed by American lobbyists working on behalf of foreign countries to lobby the US government?
oh, and as to who hires them: everyone from kazakhstan and equatorial guinea to saudi arabia and china. it’s almost a calling card by now for repressive foreign govts to have a lobbying firm (or firms) on retainer. of course, saudi arabia, because of it’s oil and geostrategic importance, doesn’t need a lot of help from lobbyists, but they do spend some money on them
For those who haven’t read the book, or would like a refresher, here’s the original article that gave rise to Turkmeniscam.
What an interesting experiment, Ken. Welcome and thanks for being here.
Were lobbyists both self-identified Democrats and Republicans?
And would you apprise the current lobbyist situation, vis-a-vis the Democratic Party, as “meet the new boss, same as the old?”
It’s something I worry about.
Welcome to the Lake Ken,
I sooo want to read your book – I have suspected all along Lobbyists and Lobbying Concerns would just as soon keep things on the low-low with regard to their M.O.’s and dynamics – can not wait to read it.
thanks for your work
ok, two questions. yes, i was very happy that trudeau picked up on my story, and introduced a series on uncle duke lobbying for “berzerkistan.”
in terms of the impact of lobbyists, sometimes they can get big gains for their clients, other times they strike out. burma has hired a # of lobbying firms over the years but it’s still a pariah. a really rotten govt like burma has a hard time no matter how many lobbyists it has on retainer, especially because there are not a lot of big american companies over there. but kazakhstan, i think, has wdone quite well with its lobbying efforst here (which run into the millions). president nazerbayev got some $78 million in bribes (including his and her snowmobiles for him and his wife) from an american oil man, but he got a white house meeting with bush not so long ago. that definitely was arranged by hired hired guns
Do this again! Different location and subject, of course, but man, this is wonderful. I can’t believe journalists were harping at you…ok, yes I can.
But keep doing it and we’ll keep reading. Is there a movie in the works? If so, who do you want to play you?
with obama coming in, democratic lobbyists are going to do very, very well. the wash post had a piece yesterday that is worth checking ou. i details how k street is hiring up democrats, inclduing people who worked on the obama campaign, in expectation of the new admin.
One of the lobbyists Ken talked to in the book was Lauri J. Fitz-Pegado, the woman who made up the rumor about Iraqi soldiers ripping Kuwaiti babies out of their incubators–a propaganda ploy to sell the first Gulf War.
Ken, do you know if any of the lobby shops you visited under cover helped sell the US invasion of Iraq?
question. what do the turks want? would they be just as happy to be left alone?
i have done undercover stories three times in 20 years. i got a lot of flack for the story from howie kurtz and his ilk, but i think udnercover is definitely a legitimate tool. hope to do it again, but may be awhile.
turkmeniscam has been optioned and a screenplay is being written, but it’s way too early to uncork the champagne on that!
Here’s a link to Ken’s post, which has a link to the WaPo item.
Turcomans? Turcomen?
IIRC Turks live in Turkey, or am I way confoozled?
FunnyDiva
in terms of iraq war, there as nothing like fitz-pegao (then at hill and knowlton) and her sales job on the first gulf war. t least as far as we know. the problem is that PR work doesn’t even necessarily have to be dosclosed to the public — only direct lobbying on the hill and the exec branch. so a lot of stuff these firms do is never even reported on or disclosed.
the turks want weapons from time to time, and they have lobbied very, very hard (and successfully) to keep congress from passing a resolution on the armenian genocide. bob livingston, dick gephardt — a huge bipartisan crew has worked for the tuks on that issue.
my book is about turkmenistan, but imagined the question was abou turkey. tep, two different countries!
actually, i am way confused here. i shut up now.
Can you say more about how lobbyists offered to work with think tanks? Were they all conservative think tanks, or are there liberal tanks that do these favors for lobbyists, too?
by the way, people should also check out (on the topic of obama) this piece ( http://www.portfolio.com/views…..s?tid=true ):
The strategy stretches back to the beginning of the primary campaign, when Hillary Clinton’s lead and party connections seemed insurmountable. Early on, the Illinois senator and his top aides decided that a full ban on lobbyists would allow Obama to help paint Clinton as a Washington insider. “It was smart politics,” a senior Obama campaign official told me.
It was also a new concept for the candidate. He’d had no problem accepting contributions from registered Washington lobbyists in his previous races for the Illinois statehouse, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate. So now that he’s scoring political points for the ban, what impact has it actually had?
Virtually none.
Digg is open.
Ken, welcome to The Lake!
In Lindsay’s quote above, it is clear you were on the receiving end of some journalist-based hissy fits.
Would these be the very same journalists who defend their own “High Art” practices of literal stenography that plague so much of the Traditional Media these days?
Would you by any chance be willing to name names?
Second question: In plumbing the cesspool that is foreign lobbying, did you ever encounter a single purveyor that had even the least little qualm about representing a clientele composed of the dregs of humanity?
Or was the money always sufficient to assuage any resemblance to conscience (i.e. We’d represent the Devil if his credit was good!)?
i think journalists and the public really need to take a look at these think tanks, they all raise a ton of money from private sources and there is not a lot of transparency there. brookings, for example, gets a lot of money from companies and individuals with ties to china — and it really shows in their work. the lobbyists i met with claimed to have connections across the board, with conservative and liberal think tanks. i recently did an item at harpers.org about how oleg deripaska, controversial russian gazillionaire, funds council on foreign relations.
Turkmenistan = country sitting to the north of Iran and Afghanistan on the Caspian Sea and subject of the book in question today.
Turkey = European country on the Mediterranean north of Irag.
Hi Ken. Thanks for your courage and diligence.
Can you talk about the impact of AIPEC on the Congress and executive branch? OR
What was the turning point period when the lobbyists seriously began to overrun Washington. OR
Listening to pre and post bail-out shenanigans … D.C. feels like an ethical free zone. What hope with new administration? OR
What is the story with Georgia and Russia in terms of PR lobbying? Feels like pure propaganda was being delivered during that incident.
If you could address any of the above if you get a chance. Sorry to bombard.
No, no no, I was just wearing my pedant hat. And it is handy to have a reminder of what Turkey wants from the US.
What do the citizens of Turkmenistan call themselves anyway? Turkmenistanis? (Pakistanis) Turkmens? (Afghans/Uzbeks).
The whole thing seems like the film Thank You For Smoking, only less funny.
FunnyDiva
kurtz at the post repeatedly bashed the undercover approach, he was most out front on that. i really don’t remember others — tho kurtz quoted some in his stories and american journalism review did a big piece that aped the kurtzian critique and quoted some critics.
as to the other question, i really set the bar low with turkmenistan — the only remaining stalinist regime along with north korea. and theni claimed to work for what was clearly a mobbed up energy firm and demanded total confidentiality (discretion was the lifeblood of our operation, i told the lobbyists, about my firm’s work in turkmenistan). so it was really the dregs, and still apco and cassidy were eager and willing to work for me (in xchange for a few million dollars)
Why do you think the media establishment turned against undercover reporting?
welcome sir and thank you for shining the light of the truth on the dirty deeds done in the name of ‘lobbying’.
They would love to be an European country, but, the EU want nothing to do with them…!
Thanks for this book, Mr Silverstein, and thanks for the great introduction, Lindsay.
Are you still being shunned in the “journalist” community for your work in Harper’s? I find it amazing that with all the sins committed in the name of journalism through the Bush years, it’s you and not Judy Miller they chose to ostracize. The story couldn’t be written except the way you did.
It wasn’t deception, it was undercover reporting. The fact that Howie Kurtz didn’t know the difference makes it much clearer that it’s a valid form of real journalism.
Thanks for chatting today!
various replies here:
turkmen is name of the people.
aipac has big influence, of course, but i think israel’s close relationship with the US based on a lot more than lobbying. israel sits in the heart of the middle east, where we get all that oil, and it works closely with US to advance foreign policy goals. they score a lot of points with that, too.
lobbyists started over-running dc beginning back in mid-70s, when business launched a big counter attacks afetr watergate and vietnam. that’s when massive funding of think tansk begin, and when growth of lobby industry dates to. in mid-1970s, most big firms didn’t do much lobbying in dc.
Aloha, Ken! Did you actually pay the lobbyists any money?
i’m biased of course but yeah, i found it pretty ironic that story got so much heat. media turned against undercover reporting in late 1970s, when chicago sun times did not win pulitzer for it’s amazing mirage tavern sries. if you don’t know, it, check it out. ben bradlee of the post helped shoot down that pulitzer. and then there was the food lion case, when abc got sued. those were two huge turning points. and in general, media has become far cozier with the political establishment — undercover political journalism is deemed to be unseemly.
Ken,
a very general question, I fully expect to learn from your work that these operators were plenty slick and cagey, but are they smart ??
even though I reference a ‘domestic guy’, I found Rick Davis to be eye opening – slick yes, but no one would ever label him intellectually nimble. Just kind of assumed all along that these guys were smart, when in cases like Davis (and maybe Scheunemann) it appears one only needed confidence and tons o’ cash as entree .
is it different in the case of the International guys ?? are they a different breed of operator ??
no, we didn’t pay them any money. on the one hand, i’m glad of that. on the other hand, it would really have been interesting if we’d had the money — $40k/month, unfortunately — to put them on retainer for a short bit. would have loved to go to meetings with members of congress, which would have been step one of their approach.
Maybe we could fundraise for a Phase II.
about how smart they were: hard to say for sure since i had only one in person meeting with each firm. some of the lobbyists i met seemed extremely sophistaicated, well-informed, clever. others seemed well-connected and very celever political operators, but they weren’t scholars, that’s for sure. i’m thinking of greg hartley here, of cassidy, former top aide to roy blunt.
When that lady blogger over at HuffPost “exposed” Barack Obama’s quotes about bitter Pennsylvanians clinging to their guns and religion, I expected a lot of garment-rending over undercover reporting, but apparently the standards are different for bloggers. She got a lot of flack because she was also an Obama supporter (and thus shouldn’t have revealed something so damaging) but journos seemed to take the position, “Well, she’s a blogger, what can you expect?”
Do you think blogging might continue to change the rules, and make undercover reporting respectable again?
IIRC, Davis had a number of foreign clients.
Do you have any information on Dennis Hastert and a Turkish Lobbying firm with the last name Dickstein Shapiro? There’s a major whistleblower case affiliated with that I believe.
“top aide to roy blunt” doesn’t reek of intellectualism, no.
hartley was no dummy, but he was no expert on turkmenistan either. all he had to sell were his political contacts on the hill, he sure didn’t have a lot of smarts about central asia
That pretty much says it all right there about intelligence (IMNSVHO)
What every happened to the Alexander Strategy Group and the Harbour Group (the foreign side of the Abramoff/DeLay axis of lobbying)?
i’m not sure about a whistleblower case, would be interesting to know. dickstein shapiro is a very big firm, not sure if it works for turkey.
blogging and online journalsim is definitely changing a lot of rules, not sure how it will play out in terms of undercover reporting yet. in general, i hope funders start shelling out money for online invstigative journalism, a few places doing it but still a big void there. and getting bigger as mainstream media continues to make cutbacks. la times, where i used to work, has been decimated.
dakine -
probably so, but was just stunned at what an average guy, and sorry for the hackneyed cliche, car salesman like he was. . guess my inner elitist will always be pissed about such dullards getting over on us
imagine if we’d committed troops to Georgia on the say so of Mr I-listen-to my-dick Scheunemann :D
Ken, thank you for visiting with us.
I’ve not yet read your book, but just reading your comments has been a heck of an ‘education’. I’ve learned more than a few things.
What likelihood do you think that there is that ‘reportage’ will improve over the next few years?
And, have you any thoughts regarding how this nation might free itself of the destructive (is there any other kind), across the board, embrace of governmental secrecy?
(We only ask simple questions here, Ken. ;~D)
ASG disbanded because of fallout from abramoff scandal. but lobbyists who worked there went on to work at other firms, they’re still out there. it as interesting, the lobbyists i met with said that the abramoff scandal had forced them to change their tactics, for example, they told me it would be tricky to send members of congress over tto turkmenistan on a junket. but they could probably get a group of staffers over, and then maybe members of congress down the road. so they were looking for ways not to get caught, but they were still looking to push rules to the very limit, and beyond if possible.
sorry to be so pessimistic but little hope that reporting will get better over next few years. the cutbacks underway are stunning. again, to cite la times, that newspaper as of this week no longer has a washington buro, it’s now part of the tribune dc buro. some incredibly good reporters were laid off. and this only most extreme example. i am a big fan of online journalism, and practice it, but it can’t fill that gaping hole at this point.
as to secrecy, i think it’s always tempting for a govt to employ it if it can get away with it, and once put into place hard to be reversed. will be intersting to see what obama does in that regard. tho i guess about the only thing on his agenda for the first year is gonna be this economic crisis — secrecy, lobby reform, and other “little” issues gonna be pushed to side.
Thanks for the responses.
A few more queries thanks, if you have time for any one:
Who were your role models as reporters?
What is going on with the Dan Rather case?
What is your next focus?
Is writing a book the cleanest, strongest way to get out anti-corporate stories now?
Thanks, Ken
Maybe the crisis is an opportunity in disguise? Transparency reforms are inexpensive. It doesn’t cost anything out of the budget to enact reform legislation. If other more expensive programs are off the table, maybe refore will start to look like a bargain. Also, people know that a lot of the financial crisis has to do with poor reporting and lack of transparency. So, there might be increased will for change.
Are you familiar with the efforts of the late William Simon (Olin Foundation, etc.), who urged fellow conservatives and businesspeople to stop giving their money to media and colleges that were not explicitly conservative? He was a big force behind the media’s being shoved rightward.
well i.f. stone has to be on the list. and his advice that journalists should assume all governments to be liars as useful as ever.
i’m not sure where rather case stands.
i’m working on stories about the energy business, don’t want to publicly say much more than that! also, even tho the bush administration is gonna be hard to top, i suspect there will be plenty of good stories to chase these next few years. i don’t mean to say obama is gonna run a corrupt admin, i hope not, but with all these bailouts there is a ton of money to be chased and obviously business community will be working hard to get every last dime out of taxpayers.it won’t be boring.
Thanks for answers.
Re energy: seems like re nuclear power, DENIAL has a green paintbrush. Real green from spin, baby, spin … green.
Please, follow the money re bail-outs! Thank you.
Some of you probably know that Ken broke the Suitgate scandal. In a blog post at Washington Babylon, he revealed that wealthy donor Nasser Kazeminy had covered bills at Nieman Marcus for MN. Republican Senator Norm Coleman and his wife.
Ken, can you say a little bit about how you came to report that story?
i agree, transparency reforms are cheap and i think obama actually believes in them. i’m not sure it’s gonna be a priority but i think we’ll see some progress there.
as to simon, yes, he was one of the big funders of the conservative effort to win back the culture post-watergate, vietnam. if you go back to that period, there was a concerted, broad effort on the part of business to influence media and public opinion. they poured in a ton of money — and, sadly, it worked for the most part.
Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds heres the link: http://www.bradblog.com/?cat=58
Mr. Silverstein,
I haven’t read your book yet, by am enjoying this thread. I have a vague recollection about the original story in Harper’s and some of the fallout wrt you and your tactics.
You have a bit in common with Greg Palast, who went undercover with the Blair govt & found that they were whores for any cockamamie group (lobbiest) who wanted to pay them. Are you familiar with his work and do you agree that the U.S. is no different?
What are the top maybe 3 qualities to be a successful investigative reporter? How do you keep up your morale swimming ethically upstream, so to speak?
on suitgate, i had not been following the race in minnesota all that carefully and don’t think i’ve ever written about coleman in the past (tho afterwards, he suggested i had it in for him). a source came to me who had provided very good information in the past, did not have direct information but had leads. found people who wanted to remain on background but who had information that looked credible and solid. and could not get coleman camp to give me an answer at all, just a no comment for a week or more. now these lawsuits have emerged that certainly make that whole connection between coleman and kzeminy all the more interesting.
It sounds like some leads fall into your lap because you are one of the few investigative reporters who is left. Is that accurate, and if so can you tantilize us with some story you hope to break in the future?
Well, leads don’t really fall into reporters’ laps, they’re earned. But I see what you’re getting at.
US actually has far better disclosure rules than britain or any of the EU countries, they have no disclosure rules at all on lobbying, truly amazing. but yeah, US otherwise certainly seems as bad, and maybe worse otherwise. we basically have a political system that runs on legalized bribery, and it’s gotten worse and worse as the amount of money flowing in gets bigger and bigger.
investigative reporting requires above all persistence — it’s not rocket science (to use an oversued cliche), it mostly means making 100 phone calls instead of 10. that said, you don’t always find the answers you’re looking for.
Do you see Nasser Kazeminy as working in concert with Norm Coleman’s friends in the Republican establishment–guys like Jeff Larsen from FLS Connect? Or is Kazeminy part of a different circle of generous donors to Coleman’s lifestyle?
U.S. is worse, despite more disclosure rules, because amounts of money are so much larger?
I guess we all believe that lobbying, in general, is a good thing. Legislators who are otherwise very busy, get a good briefing on the issues, etc. etc.
What would you do to reform lobbying efforts?
i wish leads fell into my lap more often. i’ve been working as an investigative reporter for a long time, so i think people come to me (among others) because they know i’ll aggressively pursue a story if i have a decent lead.
BTW, I love the undercover aspect of your work. Next time the (eunuch) MSM criticize you for “deception” just send them my way. I’ll remind them that one of the main underpinnings of the “market” system is “caveat emptor.” My how they squeal about the system when they get outcompeted.
various:
i think US worse in part because there is so much more money flowing thru the political system, you just don’t have the same amounts in europe. we spent about $5 billion on this year’s elections (state and federal) — that’s more than the gnp of many smaller nations.
as to kazeminy, i think norm coleman has a very close circle of friends who have taken care of him over the years, maybe legally and maybe not (i guess the investaigation into the latest charges will determine that). at minimun, kzeminey flew him and his family around on his private jet, larson rented him an apt cheap. hayes comany puts is wife on payroll. the appearance problem here — again, at minimum– is pretty obvious.
Wasn’t there a whole popular series on tv where they try to catch Online predators what is the difference?
Coleman has other friends besides Larson and Kazeminy who subsidize his lifestyle?
Government as con game. Who could have predicted? Besides, what could go wrong?
how to reform lobbying is the big question. it’s so hard because lobbyists really have become a fourth branch of govt, it’s institutionalized. and they provide, directly or indirectly, so much campaign money. that said, yes, lobbyists aren’t all evil, of course, and a lot of what they do is legitimate. i wish i had a better answer to reform question, but i don’t.
Having said that the U.S. political system is a lot larger in monetary terms than any other, I’d like to see someone look at it in % of GDP terms, both over time in the U.S. and cross-sectionally wrt other countries.
Regardless of the outcome of the above-suggested study, I am constantly AMAZED at how little money it takes for bribers to reap gigantic awards at U.S. taxpayers expense. I’d also love to see some quantitative work done in that regard. My guess is that the average payback is around 100:1. Maybe higher. And the probability of getting caught next to zero. So the risk-adjusted-rate-of-return is sky high.
Do you suppose Kazeminy was the Nieman-Marcus spender who was so shocked to get the bill for the Palin family’s wardrobe? I thought it was an odd coincidence, although presumably many wealthy GOP donors shop there. But the original charges were in Minnesota.
larson, kazeminy, hayes company puts his wife on payroll and donates to his campaign. it appears that he has very close personal ties/friendships with these people. again, maybe it’s all legal, especially as out ethics laws are such a joke. but i don’t see how taking plane trips, renting apartments, getting a job for your wife from campaign donors does not constitute a serious appearance problem at the very, very least
A lead just did. Follow up on Sibel Edmonds and her friend, Lukery. He speaks on her behalf because she is gagged under the State Secrets Act. If you do not know who she is, you will be informed at Bradblog at the link from archiebird.
There is likely at least one aspect of her story that would give you a research inspiration.
I heard that Pharma has 2 lobbyists per Congressperson. And they got everything on their lobbying wish list. Meaning uninsured children have to go without medication. So much for the “common good”. This bail-out crazymaking is certainly showing greed and narcissism and abandonment of the average citizen to the Nth and even farther degree.
When corporations were made “legal persons” … didn’t that kick in a lot of corruption. Wonder if that could be undone. Since as they say the corporate personality profile is totally self-aggrandizing, promoting itself at ANY cost. Human welfare not a consideration.
And Gary Webb too
It would be best to outlaw it. Then only outlaws would have lobbyists.
They claim to be protected under the “petition and redress” clause of the constitution, but I don’t think this is what the Founders had in mind.
Of course, there’s always ways around it. I read to day that Debbie Dingell claims to have stopped lobbying for GM in 1981, when she married John. But her position is ExecVP for Government Relations and she runs their DC office. So lobbying must be defined in a very specific way that precludes hiring and firing lobbyists, supervising them, and working with them every day to influence government.
Ken,
What is your view on the need of a ‘moral compass’ for reporters?
I ask that simply because there are those who claim to be ‘neutral’ as regards what they ‘discover’ and ‘impartial’ in their ‘interpretation’.
As Howard Zinn suggested, “You can’t be neutral on a moving train”, so, as soon as a reporter says, “I make no moral judgements, because it is too confusing.” I find that my BS meter has pegged its needle.
Clearly, you possess such a compass, which makes your reporting of special value to me. For which, I offer you, the profoundest of my appreciations.
Do you ever run into the lobbyist folks you scammed? I mean, you know, socially in DeeCee?
i have no idea on kazeminy as the nieman marcus shopper for palin, but it was curious.
and yeah, the return ratio on lobbying, campaign contributions can be pretty high. you can hire an appropriations lobbyist for 20K/month, and a $1 million or $2 million or $5 million return is not at all out of the question. who wouldn’t kill foe that type of payback?
Look at 2000, IIRC about a billion spent on the election and a tax cut for the wealthiest worth over a trillion. If you look at that billion as a four year expense, it’s only about $250 million for a trillion dollar return so more of a ratio of 4,000-1,000 to one.
Were you here for the Filkins book salon? If not, you’re channeling him perfectly.
Would it help to legally sever lobbying and fund raising? We have a First Amendment right to petition the government, lobbyists included. But it seems reasonable to stipulate in campaign finance law that people in certain professions can’t raise money for campaigns.
Thanks for answers, Ken.
Have you ever been arm-twisted to disclose a source?
As we come to the end of this great discussion,
Ken, Thank you for stopping by the Lake and spending the afternoon discussing your new book with us.
Lindsay, Thank you very much for Hosting the Book Salon.
Everyone, if you haven’t bought this great book yet, there is a link above.
Thanks all.
Is that what they are calling bribery nowadays? I suppose bank robbery would be re-allocation of resources.
i’ve fallen behind here but i’ll try to cathc up.
no, i never run into lobbyists on social scene. i have a boring life, i guess, and don’t get invited to the same parties.
yes, debbie dingell “alibi” seems lame. i just saw today that tom davis is going to work for some big “consulting” firm. he’s not doing any lobbying of course so it’s all kosher — ha ha.
by the way, thanks for all the nice comments from people. as to moral compass, i think reporters need to serve as watch dogs and being “neutral” is often just a cheap excuse for being lazy. get comments from both sides and call it a day, don’t bother assessing if one side is telling the truth and one is not.
Yes, I had the pleasure of watching Hugh in action, that day.
(I didn’t intend to mention names, eCAHN …)
thanks so much and apologies for not getting to everyone. really appreciate FDL for hosting this and everyone who participated.
I look forward to reading your terrific book. Best wishes on your next project!
& Hugh,
Yep. Still surprised that “lobbying” is not bigger than it is.
There are many examples in economics when the risk adjusted rate of return is sky high, but (believe it or not) the “market” participants are not fully aware. I think we are in the infancy of lobbiests gaining control over the govt as they are just beginning to be aware of how much they can make and how little risk of being caught & punished there is.
Ken, it’s all up to you! You and your ilk are the only ones standing between ordinary people and complete takeover of U.S. govt by corps. Today at Miami Book Fair, Naomi Klein characterized the Wall St. bailout not as U.S. takeover of banks, but rather Wall St. takeover of U.S. Treas. Dept.
Blogs are on the story too, but it’s an uphill battle.
Courage is contagious. Thanks for stand-up behavior and delivery for us all. Will check out your book soon. Good luck.
Great book salon. Thank you.
Thank you, Ken, for spending time with us AND for what you do the rest of the time.
Come back soon, as ’tis been a real and genuine pleasure to ‘meet’ you.
DW
Heh. Thought your comment was tooooo perfect.
Ken Silverstein,
Thank you soooo much for all your good work and for answering our Qs here today.
thanks again, and i’m lways easy to find. ken@harpers.org
And, thank you, Lindsay for hosting this very superb book salon.
Sorry for arriving late, great to see a reporter who still believes in reporting rather than stenography. Thanks.
Investigative journalism has been sorely lacking in this country for quite a while.
Without a doubt, any important story is worthy of an innocent deception. This is a worthy story.
Thanks for doing the heavy lifting Ken Silverstein.
I would also note that the “ethics” whiners are probably pissed you are making them look bad, and lazy.