David Koch, RIP

When I really want to creep out a liberal, I tell them that I not only have met the Koch brothers, but once visited Charles Koch at the Death Star in Wichita, and dined with David Koch once in New York (in addition to some very friendly and thoughtful meetings in his office a long time ago). But then I usually like to deepen their dismay by going on to tell them that I also once had lunch with George Soros and some of his foundation board members (at his invitation and expense), where I had great fun pointing out how much Soros and the Koch brothers had in common, on immigration, foreign and defense policy, same sex marriage, drug policy, and so forth. At this point, you can almost see the synapses frying and shriveling up inside the simple-minded Manichean liberal brain.

True to form, the obituary notice for David Koch in the New York Times today offers up yet another classic case study in media bias and ignorance:

Three decades after David Koch’s public steps into politics, analysts say, the Koch brothers’ money-fueled brand of libertarianism helped give rise to the Tea Party movement, strengthened the far-right wing of a resurgent Republican Party and played a significant role in the election of Donald J. Trump as president in 2016.

Typical. The Kochs hated Trump in 2016, opposed him vigorously throughout the entire nomination process (Vanity Fair ran a story in February 2016 entitled “Can the Koch Brothers Stop Trump?“), and have said more recently they are open to supporting Democrats in part because of their continuing dislike of Trump. But never mind: for the Times, everything has to come back to Trump (and racism).

By noon today, the Times had amended this paragraph and dropped the final clause:

Three decades after David Koch’s public steps into politics, analysts say, the Koch brothers’ money-fueled brand of libertarianism helped give rise to the Tea Party movement and strengthened the far-right wing of a resurgent Republican Party.

Maybe somebody in the newsroom had an old copy of Vanity Fair lying around. You’d think any informed newsroom might know this in the first place.

You’d expect the openly left Guardian to have a nasty obituary notice about David Koch’s passing, but on the whole the Guardian‘s story is less snarky than the Times. But then you get to the very last paragraph:

Alexander Kaufman, an environmental commentator at HuffPost, tweeted: “He deployed his stupendous fortune funding climate denial in the years when the science was clear and there was still time to avert catastrophic warming. He died as fires raged from the Amazon to the Arctic.”

That’s what you call staying on message! And also why the tedious fanaticism of the climatistas turns off more and more people every day.

The great thing is the legacy of David Koch’s philanthropy (both in the world of ideas but also medical research and the arts) will be remembered long after the editors and writers of the New York Times depart from the scene. RIP.

P.S. Me in front of the David Koch Building at the Aspen Institute in Aspen, where I led a seminar on Churchill back in 2014. I wonder how many Aspen liberals know this building exists?

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