In 2005 Horowitz attacked McCain for his “radical left-wing” funding sources; in 2008, he cleanses him

At 1:57 a.m. Friday, I posted “The McCain-Soros connection: where’s the beef?”, in which I reported that, after reading a WorldNetDaily article and four articles linked in it, including one at David Horowitz’s DiscoverTheNetworks website from 2005, I had found no concrete evidence of the Soros-McCain funding link that was claimed in the WND article and the other articles. I asked readers if they could show me such a connection, which perhaps I had missed. Later that morning, a couple of readers pointed me to a donation of more than $50,000 from Soros’s Open Society Institute to McCain’s Reform Institute. The amount was officially listed at the Reform Institute’s website, but, strangely, not at the articles I had read.

Then, at 11:42 a.m. Friday, David Horowitz posted at his blog an entry saying that the McCain-Soros connection was a “false trail.” Here is Horowitz’s post:

McCain-Soros: A false trail

The Internet and cable TV have been rife with allegations that George Soros funds John McCain. One of the sources for this claim is a book I co-authored last year called The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party. What we reported was that Soros made a contribution to McCain’s political organization when McCain was devising the McCain-Feingold bill. If you oppose that bill as I did and do, that’s the end of the story. Soros is an anti-American radical, who thinks George Bush is responsible for the war on terror and that Israel is the aggressor and genocidal armies like Hamas the victims. On these critical issues of our time, John McCain has absolutely nothing in common with George Soros. For Soros “American supremacy” is the greatest threat for world peace. For McCain, American military supremacy is the greatest guarantor of world peace. That’s quite a difference.

So, according to Horowitz, the contribution by Soros’s Open Society Institute to McCain’s Reform Institute, which the Reform Institute listed as over $50,000 (I have no idea why the exact amounts are not required), was only for the Reform Institute’s work in behalf of what became the McCain-Feingold Act. Let’s leave aside the question of how Horowitz knows—or at least he implies—that the donation was only for McCain-Feingold: “Soros made a contribution to McCain’s political organization when McCain was devising the McCain-Feingold bill.” The point here is that Horowitz, who now gives his total support to McCain as the designated GOP nominee and legatee of GW Bush’s sacred “war,” seeks to downplay the Soros-McCain connection that was previously made at Horowitz’s own website. Notice again how Horowitz dismisses Soros’s donation to McCain: “What we reported was that Soros made a contribution to McCain’s political organization when McCain was devising the McCain-Feingold bill. If you oppose that bill as I did and do, that’s the end of the story.” [Emphasis added.] Meaning, Soros’s funding of McCain is of no significance outside that one regretable lapse of the McCain-Feingold bill.

But in the 2005 article at Horowitz’s DiscoverTheNetworks website, the McCain-Soros relationship is portrayed as highly significant, and as damning. Here it is:

Thursday, March 10, 2005
John McCain Gets Soros Cash

Senator John McCain’s Reform Institute has suffered some bad press recently due to its involvement in an influence-peddling scandal with Cablevision. As usual, however, mainstream media have failed to go to the root of the matter.

Founded on June 26, 2001, McCain’s Reform Institute for Campaign and Election Issues has long served as a nerve center for the so-called “campaign finance reform” movement—a movement which has done nothing to clean up campaign finance, but has done a great deal to empower federal judges and government bureaucrats to regulate political speech, in defiance of the Bill of Rights.

Now here’s the kicker. The list of donors published on the Reform Institute’s Web site reads like a veritable Who’s Who of radical, leftwing foundations, including the Tides Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Proteus Fund and George Soros’ Open Society Institute (hat tip, Winfield Myers).

Not surprisingly, in view of the above associations, Arianna Huffington serves on the Reform Institute’s Advisory Board. Huffington has long acted as a front for George Soros’ “campaign finance reform” efforts. In 2000, she organized the so-called Shadow Conventions which provided John McCain with a bully pulpit to stump for his now-infamous McCain-Feingold Act. George Soros shouldered about one third of the cost of the Shadow Conventions.

Posted by Richard Poe @ 6:15:00 PM Eastern Time

So, in March 2005, Horowitz’s website portrayed McCain as the beneficiary of a “veritable Who’s Who of radical, leftwing foundations, including the Tides Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Proteus Fund and George Soros’ Open Society Institute…” But in February 2008, with McCain the certain GOP nominee, Horowitz reduces McCain’s radical leftwing support, for which Horowitz’s site had previously condemned him, to an insignificant and forgivable one-time donation for the insignificant and forgivable McCain-Feingold Act. Of course it’s insignificant. For Horowitz, the ONLY thing that matters, in the entire universe of politics, culture, and human history, is the war, the war, the war, the war, the war, the war, the war …

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 16, 2008 01:44 AM | Send