CPAC 2011-The State of the Conservative Union
By Roger Aronoff
CPAC 2011, the Conservative Political Action Conference, was held in an environment unlike any in recent memory. The event, which takes place in Washington, D.C. each year and is sometimes called "The Conservative Woodstock," featured plenty of controversy heading into the conference. Several major groups pulled out over a series of battles that rocked the conference and the organization that puts it on each year, the American Conservative Union.

The controversies involved the inclusion of GOProud, a gay activist group that claimed, and was claimed by the organizers, to be conservative on most issues, and thus welcomed into the big tent. But groups such as the Heritage Foundation, one of the most powerful and respected organizations in the conservative movement, opted out. A spokesman for Heritage said, "We want to promote economic freedom, a strong national defense and social conservatism. We think these policies are indivisible." Other social conservative groups also dropped out, but most stayed. This, after all, has for years been the most important and complete gathering of conservatives under the same roof.
Another source of conflict involved the question of whether the Muslim Brotherhood, and by extension, radical Islamists, were quietly gaining a foothold in the conservative movement. The issue was aired out openly among the participants, which often occurs at CPAC. Ironically, some of the same questions were being asked in the context of the Egyptian revolution, which toppled the 30-year president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, that same weekend. Can the Muslim Brotherhood be trusted, or is it a radical group bent on establishing Sharia Law in the U.S. and Egypt? At CPAC, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy and David Horowitz of FrontPageMag and the Newsreal Blog were arguing that Suhail Khan represented the stealth takeover of CPAC and eventually, possibly, the conservative movement. Khan is an ally of Grover Norquist, a board member of the American Conservative Union and the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, and one of the organizers of CPAC. Khan also worked in the George W. Bush administration, but his father had been very active in the Muslim Brotherhood, and Muslim Brotherhood-associated groups in the U.S.
A third controversy was the fact that the organization itself was being investigated for the reported embezzlement of $400,000 by the ex-wife of David Keene, the head of the ACU, until he gave that position up in the midst of all this, and it was announced that he would no longer be the force behind CPAC. Shortly thereafter it was announced that he was going to head up the National Rifle Association.
What gets most of the attention at CPAC are the likely presidential candidates who speak there, and the winner of the straw poll. This event is always viewed as a key stop on the path to becoming the GOP nominee in the next election. And this year was no exception. None have officially tossed their hats in the ring, but plenty of appearances were made by likely candidates. The list includes Herman Cain, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, John Thune, Haley Barbour, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump and Mitch Daniels, all of whom spoke. Others considered potential candidates who didn't show up included Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, and Marco Rubio. The winner of the straw poll for the second straight year was Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who calls himself a Republican, but is really a libertarian. Mitt Romney came in second, with the rest of the field trailing way behind.
The media had a field day, attempting to marginalize and ridicule the line-up, painting the group as racist tea-party supporters, birthers, and lightweights. As AIM Chairman Don Irvine wrote, "The only reason [Chris] Matthews went after CPAC with such zeal was to marginalize a conference that drew over 10,000 people and put the conservative movement on display, which is a real threat to the Democrats in 2012 and something he only wishes the liberals could effectively duplicate."
I was particularly impressed with some of the new members of Congress, and other bright lights of the movement: Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD), Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), and Governor Luis Fortuno of Puerto Rico.

Justice Denied

There were dozens of panels going on at CPAC. This is a treasured part of CPAC -great discussions on timely issues-that get little or no attention from the media.  There are many policy experts and political activists who participate in these panel discussions. Among my favorites was one called "Lawlessness, Racialism and Terror at Obama's Department of Justice," consisting of Andy McCarthy of National Review, who successfully prosecuted the Blind Sheikh and others involved in the first World Trade Center bombing, Hans von Spakovsky, formerly with the Justice Department as counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights and a member of the Federal Elections Commission, and J. Christian Adams, the Justice Dept. official who blew the whistle on the racial politics involved in the decision by the Obama Justice Department to drop the New Black Panther voter intimidation case, which occurred during the 2008 presidential election.
Andy McCarthy talked about the Obama Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder. He said Holder had filled the department with lawyers from "The al-Qaeda Bar," meaning lawyers who had worked for up to eight years representing the enemy in war time. He argued that even if one accepts the idea that these people, most of whom were captured on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, were entitled under the U.S. Constitution to the same rights as American criminals, which he doesn't, these were very often habeas corpus cases, not criminal cases. In other words, it was about getting a court to look at their case, not to actually defend them.
McCarthy said it was "atrocious" to give them such rights, including systematic access to our courts while the war was ongoing. In fact these same people could have been shot and killed on the battlefield by our troops with no legal consequences. McCarthy pointed out that there are rights for combatants under the Geneva Accords, but these people do not belong in that category.
One other outrage pointed out by McCarthy was the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, had told a military commission that he was ready to plead guilty to this heinous act of terror. But President Obama and Eric Holder pulled the plug on the military commission and announced back in November of 2009 that they planned to try him in a civilian courtroom in New York City. Two months later, in January of 2010, under intense political pressure, they backed off those plans, but to this day have not announced what they plan to do with him.
Christian Adams discussed his experience at Justice involving the New Black Panther case. He said that he was told to not comply with a subpoena to testify about the case, and that the DOJ lied to Congress, and gave inaccurate testimony to the Civil Rights Commission.
Another panel was called "The Sharia Challenge in the West," with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of the books Infidel and Nomad, Jim Woolsey, former CIA Director, and Andy McCarthy. The panel was moderated by Cliff May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

AIM Honors Journalists At CPAC

AIM had an active role at CPAC. On the opening day of the conference, AIM gave the annual Reed Irvine Journalism Awards to Ken Timmerman and Tucker Carlson.  Both received checks for $1,000.
Timmerman, who won the award for Investigative Journalism, is a journalist, author, and contributing editor for Newsmax. His recent books include Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, and Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran. He has a new novel out, called St. Peter's Bones, about the persecution of Christians in Iraq. In 1998, Timmerman tracked Osama bin Laden and his international terrorist network for Reader's Digest, and his exposé was published just weeks before the bombings of the two U.S. embassies in Africa. In April 1983, Timmerman was the first U.S. correspondent on the scene when the U.S. embassy in Lebanon was blown up by Islamic militants. Through his Foundation for Democracy in Iran, Timmerman has been working for about 15 years, helping the pro-democracy movement in Iran.
During his comments and the Q&A that followed, Timmerman talked about his career as an investigative journalist. He discussed his guiding principles for investigative journalism: 1) "Don't run with the pack-it's best to stay away from the pack; and 2) Don't be afraid of unpopular things, trust your instincts and trust your sources, but question them hard." He described the incident in 1982 when he was captured by terrorists and held for a couple of weeks. He said the Lord didn't want him to be a martyr, but rather a witness.
He later made it his business to get to know what Saddam Hussein was up to regarding weapons of mass destruction, back in the 1980s. He said he "got to know every arms dealer in Baghdad" at that time. He later worked for both the Simon Wiesenthal Center and a congressional committee, putting his first-hand knowledge and expertise to good use. Wiesenthal cited Timmerman, saying that he, Wiesenthal, had been tracking the murderers of yesterday, and that "this guy Timmerman is tracking the murderers of tomorrow."
He shared a fascinating and telling experience when he was working for Time magazine. He essentially broke the "ChinaGate" story. He said he went to trusted sources in the Customs office, who told him that America's B-1 Bomber plant in Columbus, Ohio was being shown to Communist Chinese officials at night when the plant was shut down. Timmerman couldn't believe this was happening, but it was. The Clinton administration was allowing a whole series of defense production facilities to be seen, and in some cases to make deals with the Chinese.
Timmerman took the story to his editors at Time. Working with them, he wrote a long, detailed story, ready to go. The Friday before the story was supposed to run, he was taken inside the editor's office and fired. He was told they got a phone call from the Department of Commerce. He said yes, "I interviewed people there and asked them why they were allowing this technology to go to Communist China. They said, 'you really annoyed some people in the Clinton administration. You're fired.'" Timmerman's reaction was, "that's really extraordinary." He said that he may be the only journalist to be fired from a major news organization for writing a story that annoyed an administration. "I thought that was what we were supposed to do. Time has since shown that it is no longer a national news organization, but a publicity bureau."
He said his biggest story ever was about the involvement of Iran in the 9/11 attacks. He wrote about that in his 2005 book, Countdown to Crisis. It is a story that few people today are aware of.
And finally, he offered advice for young reporters. He said to "find a story you like and follow it. Learn everything you possibly can about it. Don't be afraid to admit when you're wrong. Once you know you're right, stick to your guns, stick to your guns, and don't be afraid of controversy… you will pay a price for telling the truth, but it's worth it. It's worth it here to be in this room with you, to tell the truth, and know that you've pursued the truth, even at a cost, at a personal cost, at a cost in terms of your career. Speaking truth to power always has a cost. The sad irony, I have to say as a journalist, is that these days, the power to which we speak truth is the entrenched establishment media. Thanks very much, it's a great honor to be here."
Tucker Carlson won the Reed Irvine Award for Grassroots Journalism, for his compelling conservative website, The Daily Caller. Carlson is co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Caller, and is a senior fellow of the Cato Institute. He formerly co-hosted CNN's "Crossfire" and MSNBC's "Tucker." Asked about the deal in which the very liberal Huffington Post was recently bought out by AOL for $315 million, he said it was good for online journalism in that it established a monetary value for the top operations. And, he said, "It says a lot about the transition that the conventional media are dying." He said that The Huffington Post is technologically savvy…its platform is first rate, but its content is really limited…first of all her [Arianna Huffington's] politics are ludicrous, when they're not just flat out offensive."
Tucker talked about The Daily Caller's work exposing the existence of JournoList, an Internet forum on politics and the news media which was comprised of about 400 leftist journalists and academics. "I've worked in the press my whole life and grown up around it," said Tucker, "and like Ken, and I've always known the obvious which is that 99.9 percent of reporters are liberal. Not all of them are liberal activist types, but their default position is liberal. They're all pro-choice, they're all secular, none of them hunt, (laughter). I'm serious. They're culturally liberal. and a lot of it is unconscious. There are some, a small but intense minority, of left-wing activists in the media. And very pernicious, it's actually scary in my view, especially around election time… The JournoList series, written by our fantastic reporter, Jonathan Strong, really exposed the degree to which there is a coordination between some of them of the intentional kind. Not just, 'wow, we all sort of have the same perspective; isn't Sarah Palin a buffoon,' that's the way most people in the press look at the world. But there are some who aren't journalists at all, who actually coordinate their message in order to help a specific political candidate, in this case Barack Obama, and that is by definition, dishonest, and those people ought to be kicked out immediately from the fraternity of journalists. And the fact they weren't tells you very much, I believe."
During the Q&A he was asked about Media Matters, the far-left, Soros funded media watchdog group headed up by David Brock. Carlson said that Media Matters "has an enormous amount of influence, and has no credibility at all. Media Matters has nothing to do with journalism. It's a political organization that was started partly in response to a request by Hillary Clinton…It is run by a political operative, a group of them. They are highly ideological, they are utterly unscrupulous, they are provenly dishonest. I hold them in complete contempt. And I don't feel that way about people that I disagree with by and large."
As you can see, AIM's Reed Irvine Award winners were very deserving of the recognition. AIM also had a session at CPAC called "Media Training for Grassroots Activists," which provided grassroots training to anyone who wanted to attend, regarding new media techniques to get out their message. Cliff Kincaid and I both spoke, but this one was mainly featuring the expertise of AIM Chairman Don Irvine and AIM's new director of Public Relations Logan Churchwell, who expounded on the use of Twitter and Facebook to organize and spread the message. There was a great deal of interest in this topic, and AIM delivered an important and useful seminar.