Yale English professor David Bromwich lauds Jane Mayer’s new anti-Koch book for The Nation.
Her narrative begins in the middle, with the summit of January 30–31, 2009, in Indian Wells, California: a convocation of distressed billionaires, invited by the Koch brothers to plan against the consequences of Barack Obama’s election. . . .
The billionaires who joined them in the wake of Obama’s inauguration were agreed in their wish to obstruct any progressive reform the new president might attempt. The likely guest list must be inferred from the scraps of other lists: The financiers known to have attended or sent proxies to later summits in Obama’s first term include Steven A. Cohen, Paul Singer, and Stephen Schwarzman. Present and accounted for at Indian Wells, however, were Senators John Cornyn of Texas and Jim DeMint of South Carolina. Conservative opinion-makers like Charles Krauthammer, RameshPonnuru, and Glenn Beck, who had accepted invitations to earlier summits, were situated to learn punctually of the doings at Indian Wells, and whatever may have been resolved there, the design that emerged would be vindicated in one obvious way. By March 2015, Charles and David Koch’s personal fortunes had climbed from the initial $14 billion to almost $42 billion each.
Bromwich is incorrect: I had not accepted any invitation to an earlier conference. I’m learning about the 2009 Indian Wells gathering only today, which is not very punctual of me. And I still don’t know anything about the “doings” there, although they certainly sound very sinister.
I wonder if left-wingers ever hold conferences about obstructing conservative policies. Maybe even conferences that include opinion journalists, elected officials, and rich people? Surely not, or at least they don’t involve any doings.
Dark Doings in Indian Wells