Tom Brokaw Bought a Dude Ranch with Clinton Admin's Robert Rubin

MRC ^ | June 23, 2005 | BrentBaker

[fight_truth_decay]

Last year Tom Brokaw bought a Montana "dude ranch" with several others, including Clinton administration Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, actor Michael Keaton, one of the other partners, revealed on Wednesday's Late Show with David Letterman. The February issue of Sunset magazine reported the purchase and how the buyers turned the ranch into a private fishing camp, but didn't mention Rubin's involvement: "Last spring...an out-of-state partnership including former anchorman Tom Brokaw and actor Michael Keaton purchased a 640-acre ranch for a reported $8 million, creating a private hunting and fishing preserve."

Back on the May 12, 1999 NBC Nightly News, the day Rubin resigned from his Treasury post, Tom Brokaw praised Rubin, telling viewers he "is going back to private life after quietly and very skillfully positioning the government to help fuel these extraordinarily good times."

On Wednesday's Late Show, Michael Keaton, a star of the new movie for kids, Herbie: Fully Loaded, brought up fishing and that prompted David Letterman to ask: "Recently, I've heard from Tom Brokaw, that you and Tom purchased a fishing camp."

Michael Keaton: "Yeah."

Letterman: "Now, what is that? Is that on the up and up?"

Keaton: "Yeah, yeah. It's a friend of our's, Skip Herman, and Tom and Robert Rubin, actually, who was in the Clinton administration, Secretary of the Treasury. And, of course, you know, we were smart enough to, like, make him, like, you know, like, groundskeeper, instead of taking care of the money. Hey, Robert, you mow the lawn or something. Shouldn't I take care of the money? No, Tom will do that, don't worry about it!"

Letterman: "What goes on there? What happens there?"

Keaton: "Oh, I could never tell you about that."

Letterman: "I mean, you guys get together, like once a week-"

Keaton: "No, no, what we did, it was more to preserve it than anything. It was an old dude ranch that had been in the family -- it's right up the valley from me -- and, you know, the guy would let us fish there after the dudes had gone, you know -- I know-" (cut off by audience laughter)

Letterman: "After the dudes had gone."

Keaton: "So we bought it, just really to save it. It's a really pristine section of the river, and a beautiful section. We just all went together to buy it. It's really beautiful."

Letterman: "And you're not running around snapping each other with towels."

Keaton: "Well, yeah, I mean, that happens. (Audience laughter) Yeah, yeah, we have a sign, like an old rickety sign that says, 'no girls!'" (laughter)

(The MRC's Brian Boyd corrected the closed-captioning against the video of the June 22 Late Show.)

To see where this ranch is located and if anyone had reported this Brokaw-Rubin venture, I performed some Nexis searches and came up with only one article, in Sunset magazine, which reported the 2004 transaction for the ranch in the area of Big Timber, Montana. (Letterman also owns property in Montana.) The article cited Brokaw and Keaton, but not Rubin.

An excerpt from the story in the February edition of Sunset magazine, "Home on the range: Meet Montana ranching families want to raise healthier beef for you -- and save their way of life," by Jeff Phillips:

The town of Big Timber, once the region's largest wool producer, today has only 1,700 residents, but Montana State University Extension agent Marc King, who works with both farmers and government agencies in Sweet Grass County, says the face of that population is starting to change. "Most every ranch in this county has been in the family for at least three or four generations," explains King, "but as those families are forced to sell, new owners are taking the land out of production."

Last spring, for example, an out-of-state partnership including former anchorman Tom Brokaw and actor Michael Keaton purchased a 640-acre ranch for a reported $8 million, creating a private hunting and fishing preserve. Members of that partnership now own at least 12,000 acres of ranchland in the heart of the region.

END of Excerpt

The article is posted online, but you'll need to be an AOL member or pay to read it: www.sunset.com

In a later letter to the magazine, Brokaw corrected the price to $7 million.

[fight_truth_decay]

Ted Turner has a 120,000-acre ranch outside of Bozeman. In Livingston, Jeff Bridges has a home and owns a coffee shop. Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid (before the breakup) in Livingston. Near Big Timber, 30 miles east of Livingston, Tom Brokaw, Michael Keaton(Architectural Digest June 1997 Cover- Featuring Michael Keaton's ranch) and Whoopi Goldberg all have ranches.

Mel Gibson has a ranch a little farther east, near Columbus. Kiefer Sutherland, Emilio Estevez, Joe Montana, Christopher Lloyd, Huey Lewis, and Andie McDowall all have homes in western Montana.

[SoDak]

Keep them in Montana.

[Random Nonsense]

Great.. the Kalifornication of Montana. I wonder whether the native Montana people could afford the land there.

I would like at least 100 acres up there, but faraway from these people.

[OldFriend]

If I am not mistaken, Brokaw has had been in a war with some of his neighbors already.

[deadeyedawg]

Hell no, send them back to the People's Republik of Kalifornia. All they do is drive up the cost of living there so that the natives can't get by!

[kittymyrib]

I think that for "the common good" the states should seize these wonderful pieces of property so that all of us could enjoy their pristine beauty in a state park. What right do these rich liberals have to this land when all of us could be using it?

[NativeNewYorker]

Rubin's % of the divvyed up $8 million would barely be a rounding error to him. Odd that he'd bother.

[SoDak]

Yeah, back to Kalifornia would be a best case scenario, because I really like Montana. I'm just saying that I don't want them here. Ted Turner and a few other celeb types bought a lot of land here in the 90's after the Dances With Wolves movie, driving up the cost of doing business for native ranchers. Turner had some money issues after AOL/Time-Warner started tanking, and sold most of it back off.

[elbucko]

Great.. the Kalifornication of Montana.

Actually, the majority of these people are either from New York or New Yorkers by acculturation. Calif. was RUINED by New Yorkers (and immigrant socialist Texans). Barbara Boxer, Gray Davis and Jack Scott, to name but a contemporary familiar few. California is just a stepping stone to the "North Western Territories" for the wealthy liberal Eastern elite. Montana, Wyoming, the Dakota's, IDAHO are now in their crosshairs. Yes I wrote Idaho. It is now on the list of retiring New York yuppies. Have a nice day.

[silverleaf]

Bravo!

I think after today's USSC decison, the public would benefit a lot more from that land if governmment took it and sold it to someone else to build a wind farm.

And we used to say, the wind ALWAYS blows in Montana (because North Dakota sucks)

[fight_truth_decay]

Good comment..you are not mistaken

Brokaw tries to stop neighbors from hunting

[zerosix]

Sh@*!! These guys have ruined Montana. We need to have the State of Montana step in take their property and pay graze land property, then ship them all off to Canada, where they surely agree with the politics much more (save Mel.)

[Random Nonsense]

sure, but you can't ignore the fact that heaps of hollywood types are Kalifornians, are they not.

ok, back to the big fish Ted Turner. Beside his US $1 billion commitment to the UN, he is the largest private land owner with more than 2 million acres of lands:

http://www.tedturner.com/enterprises_properties.html

It must be nice to be filthy rich.

[kittymyrib]

Excellent idea, silverleaf! The same wind generating enterprise that will take the Kennedy and Kerry properties in MA to provide vital alternative energy may want to acquire the Brokaw/Rubin land by eminent domaine as well. The liberals will have realized their fondest wish that all property be designated for "the common good." I'm sure they'd be happy to comply with today's Supreme Court ruling.

[all4one]

I would bet that they are getting some type of tax break, or government funding for listing this property as a farm or maybe a land trust, or green space. There have been more than a few govenment types, who are giving back to themselves by owning "farms".

[Temple Owl]

If I am not mistaken, Brokaw has had been in a war with some of his neighbors already.

Yeah, the clown thinks he's a part of "The Greatest Generation." He's actually part of the Clinton generation.

[DoctorMichael]

"........Tom Brokaw.......Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin........actor Michael Keaton........"

Why does this bring up wierd images?

A menage a trois?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

LOL, I wonder if it was the dude ranch featured in "Nude Dude at the BarNothing Ranch"? For the switch hitters.

[conservativeharleyguy]

Ted Turner runs a pretty sizeable herd of Bison on his southern New Mexico "Ladder Ranch".

It's one of his "Turner Endangered Species Fund Program" properties.

As a reward, the federal government gives him sizeable tax exemptions.

[RJL]

Tom Brokaw and actor Michael Keaton purchased a 640-acre ranch for a reported $8 million, creating a private hunting and fishing preserve."

I'm sure I've read that Tom Brokaw recently went to court and shut down, at least parts of, a private hunting preserve adjacent to his ranch out west.

Now we find out he owns a private hunting and fishing preserve. With liberals it's always " Yes for me, but not for thee".