Talk:Bipartisan Policy Center
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The following was removed from the main page of this article by CMD Staff for further review:
The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) is according to itself:
- BPC was formed to develop and promote solutions that would attract the public support and political momentum to achieve real progress. The BPC acts as an incubator for policy efforts that engage top political figures, advocates, academics and business leaders in the art of principled compromise. In addition to advancing specific proposals, the BPC also is broadcasting a different type of policy discourse that seeks to unite the constructive center in the pursuit of common goals.[1]
BPC was formerly named the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP), but the organization changed spots in 2002 (when the organization sought to position itself to lobby on a wider range of issues, especially foreign policy.
The proliferation of important titles like “Senior, Executive, President, etc.” should alert one to the fact that this is a lobbying organization with a secondary role of providing a sinecure to out-of-office government officials.
Critical Assessment
Justin Raimondo, the AntiWar columnist writes:
- If the Israelis have launched a covert operation in this country designed to push us into war – not the first time such an effort has been made by a foreign power, and no doubt not the last – one can hardly blame them. They, after all, are simply doing what all nation-states everywhere do: pursuing their own national interests. One could certainly argue that Israel’s interests would not be served by such a war, but, really, that’s not my shtick, as they say: I’m concerned with what’s in America’s interests – which is what really puts me on the other side of the barricades from Makovsky and Rubin.
Covert operations invariably involve deception: front groups that aren’t what they appear to be, hidden interests that masquerade under false pretexts, and ostensibly "respectable" individuals who serve purposes other than those announced. This is what the Bipartisan Policy Center is all about.[2]
Hawkish on... Iran
One of the means for BPC to propagate its views is to place Opeds in the major newspapers. Philip Giraldi, the former CIA officer, comments on BPC:
- The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) is surely one of the more bizarre pro-Israel think tanks doing business in Washington. Its sage advice pops up here and there, most recently in The Wall Street Journal, where it advocated giving Israel tanker aircraft so its warplanes can fly to Iran, bomb the hell out of that country’s nuclear facilities, and make it safely back. The BPC’s National Security Project is headed by Charles Robb, a former senator and governor from Virginia and living proof that you can fool most people more than once. Robb argues that enabling a devastating Israeli attack on Iran would create a credible deterrent to Tehran’s misbehavior and maintains that his judgment is derived from a “fact-driven consensus.”
...
The BPC claims to be bipartisan because it includes both Democrats and Republicans, but that does not mean that it is objective. More than three years ago it produced a “task force” report on the Iranian threat called “Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development.” It concluded that Iran has no right to enrich nuclear fuel for any purpose and predicted that Tehran would have sufficient highly enriched uranium in a year’s time to build a bomb. It advocated talking to Tehran to give it a chance to surrender on all key issues before attacking it, and it urged newly elected but not yet inaugurated President Barack Obama to build up forces for the assault. The task force recommended that the U.S. military should, after bombing Iran into submission, remain in the area, vigilant and ready to react to any attempt at retaliation by Tehran.[3]
And about the nature and origins of BPC, Giraldi concludes:
- The BPC has plush offices on Eye Street in Washington, a sizable staff, and a number of important people on its masthead. It might be churlish to ask where its money comes from, but I would hate to embarrass someone as self-important as former senator and governor Charles Robb. The fact is that groups like BPC do a major disservice to the people of the United States because they promote themselves as nonpartisan and free of any particular political agenda when they are anything but. Their claimed objectivity is clearly a fiction, as they have been calling for military action against Iran for years, citing nonexistent threats and even speculating on the state of a nuclear program that does not exist. Their failure to include anyone who actually knows anything about Iran on their team and their choice to exclude anyone who might oppose a new war or be disinclined to think that all Muslims are potential traitors should tell us everything we need to know. It is a sad commentary on the state of the United States that ignorant, blowhard warmongers such as the BPC receive money, political support, and press coverage while groups that want to restore sanity and balance to American foreign policy are forced to scramble to raise nickels and dimes. [3]
Principals and Staff 2012
| Board of Directors | ||
|---|---|---|
| Jane Garvey BPC Chair | Dennis Archer | Sheila Burke |
| John C. Danforth | Larry Higby | Charles Robb |
| Frances Fragos Townsend | Mark Walsh | Jason Grumet BPC President |
| Norman R. Augustine | Ralph Cavanagh | Mark W. Heising |
| Walter Isaacson | John W. Rowe | Charles F. Wald (USAF General ret.) |
| Source | ||
| BPC: About Us: Board of Directors [4] | ||
| Founders | ||
| Howard Baker | Tom Daschle | Bob Dole |
| George J. Mitchell | ||
| Source | ||
| BPC: About Us: Founders [5] | ||
| Governors' Council | ||
| Phil Bredesen | Brad Henry | Mike Rounds |
| Jim Douglas | Linda Lingle | Ted Strickland |
| Source | ||
| BPC: About Us: Governors' Council [6] | ||
| Steering Committee: Strategic Public Diplomacy Initiative | ||
| Zainab Al-Suwaij | Peter Berkowitz | Jared Cohen |
| Paula Dobriansky | Michael Doran | Aaron Lobel |
| Joseph Nye | Preston Padden | Rob Satloff |
| Source | ||
| BPC: About Us: Board of Steering Committee[7] | ||
| Senior Fellows | ||
| Robert F. Bennett | Byron L. Dorgan | Dan Glickman |
| Trent Lott | Pete V. Domenici | Bill Frist |
| James L. Jones | ||
| Source | ||
| BPC: About Us: Senior Fellows [8] | ||
| Staff | ||
| Jason Grumet President | Julie Anderson Senior VP | David W. Conover Senior VP |
| Denise Devenny VP of Operations | Martha Houle VP of Dev. | Eileen McMenamin VP of Communications |
| Michele Stockwell VP of Public Policy and Exec. Director, BPCAN | Loren Adler Policy Analyst | Shai Akabas Policy Analyst |
| Margot Anderson Exec. Director of the Energy Project | Alice Ankamah Admin. Asst. | Julie Barnes Director of Health Policy |
| Jeremy Bayer Director of Corporate Partnerships | Pat Beautz Director of Information Technology | Steve Bell Senior Director of the Economic Policy Project |
| Paul W. Bledsoe Senior Advisor | Neta Bozman Database Admin. | Abbey Brandon Admin. Asst. |
| Sara Bronnenkant Dev. Coordinator | Grace Campion Policy Analyst | Mackenzie Case Dev. Asst. |
| Yadira Castellanos Exec. Asst. | Ashley Clark Press Secretary | Rebecca Cohen Senior Policy Analyst |
| Kimberly Dean Senior Advisor, BPCAN | Joann Donnellan Media Consultant | Charlie Eder Senior Events Manager |
| Bob Edmonds Senior Military Fellow | Tricia Ferrone Exec. Asst. to the President | Jane Flegal Policy Analyst |
| John C. Fortier Director of the Democracy Project | Emil H. Frankel Visiting Scholar | Katie Golden Project Asst. |
| Nate Gorence Assoc. Director for Energy Innovation | Alex Gray Policy Analyst | Laura Hall Senior Legislative Asst., BPCAN |
| Hal Harvey Visiting Scholar | Emily Hawkes Director of Administration | Zachary Hastings Hooper Director of Public Affairs |
| Meredith Hughes Policy Analyst | Gregory Johnson (USN Admiral ret.) Senior Advisor | Colleen Kelly Policy Analyst |
| Ronald Keys Senior Advisor | Joe Kruger Director for Energy & Environment | Eric Larson Project Asst. |
| Allison Levy Policy Analyst | Lourdes Long Senior Policy Analyst | Lisel Loy Director of the Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative |
| Alyssa Loy Events Asst. | Ben Ludwig Legislative Asst., BPCAN | Jennifer Macedonia Senior Advisor |
| Michael Makovsky Foreign Policy Director | Marissa McCauley Admin. Asst. | Meghan McGuinness Assoc. Director for Energy & Environment |
| Blaise Misztal Assoc. Director | Elena Muehlenbeck Controller | Peter R. Neumann Visiting Scholar |
| Pamela Hughes Patenaude Director of Housing Policy | Jerome Powell Visiting Scholar | Arnold L. Punaro Visiting Scholar |
| Leah Ralph Policy Analyst | Hope Richardson Project Asst. | David Rosner Assoc. Director for Energy Security |
| Nikki Rudnick Assoc. Director, Housing | Jonathan Ruhe Senior Policy Analyst | Amelia Shister Admin. Asst. |
| Jessica Smith Project Coordinator | Gordon Somers Facilities Coordinator | Rob Strayer Director of the National Security Preparedness Group |
| Michael Stubel Web Producer | Tracy Terry Director for Energy Security | Emily White Events Coordinator |
| Donald R. Wolfensberger Resident Scholar | Lazaro Zamora Admin. Asst. | |
| Source | ||
| BPC: About Us: Staff [9] | ||
BPC: Former Principals and Staff
Contact
Resources and articles
Related Sourcewatch articles
- The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Foundation and global warming
- The Joyce Foundation and global warming
- Strategic Public Diplomacy Project
External Resources
- Justin Raimondo, The Worms in the Apple, Antiwar.com, 18 September 2009 [10]
References
- ↑ About, Bipartisan Policy Center, accessed February 3, 2009.
- ↑ Justin Raimondo, The Worms in the Apple, Antiwar.com, 18 September 2009.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Philip Giraldi, Bipartisan Support for World War III, AntiWar,
- ↑ Accessed: 16 February 2012
- ↑ Accessed: 16 February 2012
- ↑ Accessed: 16 February 2012
- ↑ Accessed: 16 February 2012
- ↑ Accessed: 16 February 2012
- ↑ Accessed: 16 February 2012
- ↑ Contains extensive discussion of some of the principals in this organization. (Accessed: 16 February 2012)
