Ahh, movement conservatism

David Frum lost his job at the American Enterprise Institute. What is AEI? Its a conservative think-tank that researches, comes up with policy ideas etc. to generally promote "conservative" agendas.

Liberal versions exist as well, but the conservative ones are more numerous and better funded.

Anyway, he lost his job. Why? Because oh my word he didn't toe the party line.

From the article above:

Bruce Bartlett, another conservative scholar who has been at odds with the
right, wrote that Frum told him AEI staffers "had been ordered not to speak
to the media" about health care "because they agreed with too much of what
Obama was trying to do. . . . The donor community is only interested in
financing organizations that parrot the party line.

See, this is a problem. The donor community, mostly massive trusts set up by very very rich people, don't care about fact. They don't care about the greater good. They care about what's good for them. And having paid scholars who can be fired anytime they aren't spouting what you want is handy.

I'm not saying this doesn't exist on the liberal side. But not to this degree. How can this not horribly undermine what little legitimacy some of these places have when stating opinions contrary to what donors want gets you fired.

I questioned them before, now it becomes apparent they are just mouthpieces for the Enterprise that's in their name. This is sad.