NYT: Quixotic ’80 Campaign Gave Birth to Kochs’ Powerful Network

[Miles]

Article.

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The snippet doesn't do it justice; good read.

[AggregateDemand]

This is a skillfully written ad hominem attack against the Koch brothers, which relies entirely on the ignorance of the reader.

It was not uncommon for libertarians or neoliberals to be afraid of the Republican machine, who they saw as being aligned with the Nixon/Ford ideology, not neoliberalism or limited-government libertarianism. The Kochs were not too right-wing for the Republican Party of Reagan, but the author wants readers to draw that conclusion.

Furthermore, no one cares about the sweetheart oil/gas deals of the 1980s or deregulation agendas because we now know that the Reagan administration was planning to collapse the price of oil, with help from Saudi Arabia, to bring down the Soviet Union and rogue Middle Eastern countries (Iran, mainly).

I happen to think the Koch brothers are a bit nuts, but the article does little or nothing to develop their character as opportunistic right-wingers. The Koch Brothers have the rich-person's psychosis. They are not the architects of coordinated conspiracy.