CNN’S LOU DOBBS IS REPORTING ON THINK TANKS each night this week. He is looking at which tanks are most influential and why — as well as looking at the question of whether non-transparent funding is inappropriately using think tanks to push various agendas. His show is called “Thought Leaders.”
I know that Gary Schmitt of the Project for the New American Century will appear tonight as he had signed in at CNN for his interview shortly before I got there. Despite many intellectual and policy differences I have with PNAC, the organization’s influence has been enormous — and despite Bill Kristol getting a lot of cash from Rupert Murdoch to help float The Weekly Standard, the Project for the New American Century started with a small staff, mostly volunteer, a fax machine, and a bunch of like-minded policy intellectuals who were paid by other institutions. Many don’t like PNAC — but the model they have used is impressive, and many should learn from it in my view.
But I will also be on tonight, 6 p.m. eastern, in case any are interested in this subject.
— Steve Clemons
