The "Oh piffle, it's all just crazy talk" defense won't work here. The objective truth in this claim is not subject to who happens to be saying it. EG: For all we know, Lind could be just repeating what the Pope told him.
"The modern conservative brain trust originated in a scheme hatched in the 1970s by William E. Simon, Irving Kristol, and others." The plan was to make conservative intellectuals, hitherto an independent-minded, quirky, and diverse community, a controlled monolith that would function as the reliable tool of the Republican Party. "By the early 1990s, thanks to the success of the Simon-Kristol initiative, almost all major conservative magazines, think tanks, and even individual scholars had become dependent on money from a small number of conservative foundations."
That borders on LaRouches veracity.
Ah yes the larouche red herring, released only in times of great distress. 8*) Let me refute your insinuation:
The veracity is hardly questionable, given publicly known facts you may verify.
Please note that Lind uses the words "scheme" and "initiative" not your sarcastically dismissive term, "conspiracy."
Further note that Lind says that the 1970s scheme became a successful initiative in the early 1990s; this belies your strawman that "we have an unsubstantiated claim of a conspiracy that occurred sometime in a decade. "
PS I think the Linds are both metrosexual. 8*)