The Soros Threat

Forward Observer
By James K. Glassman

The Soros Threat

George Soros, the 38th richest person in the world according to Forbes, says that defeating President George W. Bush in 2004 is "the central focus of my life." In an eye-popping interview recently with the Washington Post, he argued that "America under Bush is a danger to the world."

"When I hear Bush say, 'You're either with us or against us,' it reminds me of the Germans." It evokes memories, he says, of the Nazi rhetoric of his childhood in Hungary.

This wild antipathy toward the President is making Soros--who earned his $7 billion as a hedge-fund buccaneer--the single biggest funder of efforts to get Bush out of the White House. The Post figures he has spent over $15 million so far, and he is ready to give more. The 2004 Presidential race, he told the Post, is "a matter of life and death."

In early November, Soros and a partner donated $5 million to the liberal, anti-Bush MoveOn.org. He also gave $10 million to a similar organization, America Coming Together, which aims to mobilize voters in 17 battleground states. And he has promised $3 million to the
Center for American Progress, a new Democratic think tank started by former Clinton aide John Podesta.

Soros has always fancied himself an intellectual as well as a moneymaker, and he wants desperately to be taken seriously.
His first attempt came in 1997 with a weird, discursive article in the Atlantic Monthly called "The Capitalist Threat." He argued that "the spread of market values into all areas of life" is now the main threat to "open and democratic society."

The man-bites-dog nature of the anticapitalist article from the capitalist mogul brought it attention, but it was so appallingly stupid that it provoked the ire of even the typically mild-mannered, centrist journalist Robert Samuelson of Newsweek. He called Soros "a crackpot" and his essay "gibberish" akin to the "Unabomber's manifesto in its sweeping, unsupported, and disconnected generalizations."

Now Soros is back in the Atlantic with a piece called "The Bubble of
American Supremacy." Here the problem is not so much incoherence as hysteria: "The Bush administration proceeded to exploit the terrorist attack for its own purposes," he writes of the 9/11 terrorist murder of innocents. "It fostered the fear that has gripped the country…and it used the war on terrorism to execute an agenda of American supremacy."

What does Soros propose? Not military action, but "preventive action of a constructive and affirmative nature. Increased foreign aid or better or fairer trade rules," and, of course, "international cooperation."

All of this would be harmless if Soros didn't have billions to spend and the intention to manipulate our politics with them. In the past, it was enough for him to lavish money on leftish causes like drug legalization through the Soros Foundations Network. But a more strident, ideological tone has now become evident.

Soros dubbed his main charity the "Open Society Institute," a reference to the 1945 book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, by Karl Popper (1902-94), who was driven out of his native Austria by the
Nazis. Popper's ideas are complicated, but he stood for what Jonathan Rauch, in a perceptive essay following 9/11, called a free society's "irrepressible effervescence and astonishing durability." These truly are American traits, and ones that the Bush administration has tried to preserve and promote through the kinds of activities that Soros appears to detest: tax cuts, regulatory restraint, and yes, overthrowing tyrants in other parts of the world.

There is irony in Soros's simultaneous embrace of Popper and of the American Left. And hypocrisy in his attitude toward campaign finance regulation: In his foundation's annual report, Soros lauds the McCain-Feingold law limiting donations as an antidote to "a fundamental crisis in democratic self-government." Yet he pours millions into a loophole that lets nonparty groups accept funds without limit.

Let me be clear: Soros earned his money, and he can spend it on whatever he wants. What concerns me is the monstrous hatred Soros has developed toward the President of the United States--hatred shared by others in his social circle.

My guess is that the $15 million Soros has spent is just the beginning. Most voters are blessedly immune to dumb arguments even when they are well-funded. Nevertheless, it would be foolish to take Soros lightly. He is emerging as a great threat not just to the re-election of George Bush, but to our truly open society as well.

I'd like to see these enforced by our government, as written:

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
THe powers not delegated

"Everyday we see the moral relativity pushers' results as we experience the unimaginable crimes, and the collapse of a once-thriving culture's moral underpinnings. "

Hey Liz. Be careful a guy who said similar was kicked off future GOP platforms and blamed for GOP 1992 loss.

"The presidency is also America's bully pulpit, what Mr Truman called, "preeminently a place of moral leadership." George Bush is a defender of right-to-life, and lifelong champion of the Judeo-Christian values and beliefs upon which this nation was built.

Mr Clinton, however, has a different agenda. At its top is unrestricted abortion on demand. When the Irish-Catholic governor of Pennsylvania, Robert Casey, asked to say a few words on behalf of the 25 million unborn children destroyed since Roe v Wade, he was told there was no place for him at the podium of Bill Clinton's convention, no room at the inn.

Yet a militant leader of the homosexual rights movement could rise at that convention and exult: "Bill Clinton and Al Gore represent the most pro-lesbian and pro-gay ticket in history." And so they do.

Bill Clinton supports school choice--but only for state-run schools. Parents who send their children to Christian schools, or Catholic schools, need not apply.

Elect me, and you get 2 for the price of 1, Mr Clinton says of his lawyer-spouse. And what does Hillary believe?

Well Hillary believes that 12-year-olds should have a right to sue their parents, and she has compared marriage as an institution to slavery--and life on an Indian reservation.

Well, speak for yourself, Hillary.

Friends, this is radical feminism. The agenda Clinton & Clinton would impose on America--abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat--that's change, all right. But it is not the kind of change America wants. It is not the kind of change America needs. And it is not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God's country".

PS Keyes couldn't speak either in 2000.

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