Cato Institute Latest to Suffer from Abramoff Investigation

From New York Times: Dec 17, 2005

A senior scholar at the Cato Institute, the respected libertarian research organization, has resigned after revelations that he took payments from the lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for writing columns favorable to his clients.

The scholar, Doug Bandow, who wrote a column for the Copley News Service in addition to serving as a Cato fellow, acknowledged to executives at the organization that he had taken money from Mr. Abramoff after he was confronted about the payments by a reporter from BusinessWeek Online.

This shocking admission reveals the depths of financial corruption that reaches its tentacles not only in all three Branches of Government, but also in its think tanks, its trusted research and idea centers. For Bandow to extol the indefensible supporters of sweatshop, prison-like, labor on Northern Mariana as a shining example of free market seems to be a stretch even for the Cato Institute. Are the oft-quoted, Copley News Service really anti-government regulation enough to support this off shore embarrassment without tampering? Surely, Libertarians do not support the intimidative, neo-indentured servitude corporations over the rights of oppressed laborers unable to escape their situation.