Liberals cannot seem to comprehend any policy issue without first identifying themselves as the good guys and somebody else as the bad guys who are to be demonized. In health care, the villains are the insurance companies; in finance, Goldman Sachs; and in energy and politics, it is the Koch brothers, Charles and David. The Kochs own and operate Koch Industries, a privately held manufacturing and energy conglomerate with more than 70,000 employees and revenues of more than $100 billion annually. The Kochs are also politically active libertarians and devoted advocates of free-market capitalism. In addition to providing seed money for the libertarian Cato Institute, they also helped found the Americans for Prosperity. The Kochs also donate money to multiple candidates who oppose higher energy taxes and have spent millions of their own dollars lobbying against those policies in Congress.
But in recent days the Left has greatly exaggerated the Kochs’ tactics and influence. The brain trust for the Obama White House, the Center for American Progress, appears to have made it their central mission to demonize the Kochs. Liberal mainstream media outlets like MSNBC have seconded that messaging, thus helping to put the brothers at the heart of a growing leftist urban legend. Reading CAP’s blog, ThinkProgress, for example, one would think the Kochs single-handedly defeated Obama’s cap-and-trade legislation.
