Unthinking Tank -- Heritage Edition:
If you are a conservative or libertarian who criticizes the Bush Administration, Andrew Sullivan reports (and Ryan Sager confirms) you are not welcome at the Heritage Foundation, even for dinner. (LvIP)
UPDATE: The Heritage Foundation's Tim Chapman comments here. His post includes Heritage's "official response":
Failure to invite a non-member to a members-only event is not an exercise in blackballing. Declining to host an event when an alternative venue is available is not blackballing.That's not exactly a denial of the allegations. Meanwhile, Bruce Bartlett writes:
The Heritage event to which I was uninvited due to my criticism of Bush's policies was not some ordinary one of the type Heritage hosts every day. It was specifically to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 1981 tax cut. As far as I am aware, every major living figure involved in the enactment of this legislation was invited except me. I seriously doubt that any are paying contributors to the Heritage Foundation. The organization knows full well about my involvement in the 1981 tax cut because I was a senior fellow at Heritage for three years back in the 1980s before leaving to work for Ronald Reagan in the White House. I was, in fact, the staff person on Jack Kemp's congressional staff who drafted the original Kemp-Roth tax cut, upon which the Reagan bill was based, back in 1977. Many others also contributed. Some of those invited to the Heritage event did not. People can draw their own conclusions about these facts.Heritage is free to invite whom they choose to their events and offer or decline the use of their facilities by outside groups for whatever reason they please -- but there is nothing "un-libertarian" about criticizing the exercise of that choice.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Banned at Heritage?:
- Unthinking Tank -- Heritage Edition: