In Fairness, A Monied GOP Man

The post two down about Smith and Elizabeth Bagley's fete for Hillary should be balanced: There are, of course, rich Republicans.

New York Magazine has an 8-click profile on one, Bruce Kovner. It's under the provocative and ultimately unrealized headline, "George Soros's [sic] Right Wing Twin."

If you've never heard of Kovner, it's because (1) he wants it that way and (2) he's no George Soros. Arguably as rich as Soros, and a commodities guy not unlike Soros, Kovner funds ideas, not campaign hijinx. The American Enterprise Institute is his baby, and no think tank has influenced neocon thinking and Bush policy more.

For any justification of the link to Soros, you have to go to click number seven in the lengthly profile, where you'll find this:

He has never liked the hurly-burly of politics, and money has allowed him to rise above that mess. Yet there can be no question that he supports the militarist neoconservative agenda. Last October, when George Bush’s chestnuts were in the fire, Kovner helped to pull them out. He wrote checks for $110,000 to a 527 called Softer Voices that was aimed at “security moms” in swing states. Softer Voices is led by, among others, the writer Midge Decter, the wife of Norman Podhoretz, and Nina Rosenwald, a force in the pro-Israel lobby. Kovner was its largest financial backer.

It's quite a feat of fiction to tie Kovners $110,000 contribution to Soros' $3.7 million in contributions. And I can't think of a better antonym to the philosophy of ACT and MoveOn than "Softer Voices."