Why the Koch Brothers' Coup of the Cato Institute Is So Dangerous

By Alex Pareene, Salon
Posted on March 6, 2012, Printed on March 10, 2012

Charles and David Koch, of the famous anti-Obama billionaire Koch brothers, are attempting a sort of hostile takeover of the Cato Institute, one of the most prominent and independent arms of the DC-based American libertarian movement. Charles Koch co-founded Cato in the 1970s, but, as Dave Weigel explains, he left the think tank in 1991. David has been a minority partner since then, but the Kochs have largely left Cato to fund its libertarian research while they focused on polluting and evil cackling and other Koch-ish activities.

The Kochs have sued for the right to buy the shares in Cato held by the widow of co-founder William Niskanen. Their aim is basically to make Cato into another arm of their explicitly partisan messaging machine, along with Americans For Prosperity. To that end, they have already attempted to install some ridiculous Republican party hacks on Cato’s board of directors — hacks like John “Hind Rocket” Hinderacker, the attorney and “Powerline” blogger with no history of support for “liberty” to speak of.Current Cato people are upset. Some have preemptively resigned, even. (Well, announced an intention to resign upon the completion of the Koch takeover, anyway.)