Since we recently mentioned both Bob Woodward’s new book and Middle Eastern arms dealers, take a look at this Tapped post quoting Woodward on how Manucher Ghorbanifar got in touch with Dick Cheney via Michael Ledeen about Iraq’s WMDs. Ghorbanifar being a legendary Iranian arms dealer, of course.
I am constantly amazed that Michael Ledeen is still an influential personality in the Beltway. Or that the American Enterprise Institute is taken seriously at all. There should be a campaign to ban any contacts between elected officials and representatives of think tanks or lobbyists (they are one and the same, mind you.) What’s wrong with university professors if they need experts?
Updated: Have corrected typo in title.
Because university professors are neutral and unbiased advisors, whereas think tank members are grubby lobbyists with a hidden agenda? Give me a break.
University professors may have ideological agendas, but at leasy they’re not there to advance a lobby group’s agenda automatically. I would trust a medical researcher at a big university more than a researcher from the institute of tobacco studies (ok, I recently saw Thank You for Smoking). Same generally applies across different fields.