A recent New York Times piece took aim at Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (and occasional TWS contributor). A lot of Beltway policymakers are upset at Dubowitz, mainly for his scathing criticisms of the Iran nuclear deal over the last several years but also for the ambivalence he expressed over the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the deal.
But the Times didn’t confine its attacks to Dubowitz’s policy views. “He is far from the usual tweedy think-tanker,” wrote reporter Gardiner Harris. “Raised in Canada, trained as a lawyer and having worked in venture capital, Mr. Dubowitz wears tailored French suits and keeps his curly hair just so. In 2016, he received $560,221 in compensation as the foundation’s chief executive.” That salary, Harris went on to suggest, is nearly twice the size of those of most of Dubowitz’s think tank counterparts.
For the record, we know lots of Washington think tankers. Not one would we describe as “tweedy,” whatever that means. Nor are we sure why a Canadian provenance or a law degree makes Dubowitz an outlier. The Scrapbook has met the man once or twice and does not recall his hair being “just so.”
The piece went on to suggest that FDD is an arm of Israel’s Likud party and bankrolled by Jewish billionaires. A day or two later, however, the Times issued a wee correction. The article, said the Times,
The term “fake news” gets thrown around a lot these days, but when the correction is nearly as long as the original article, it just might qualify.
