The CFR political cartel. (The Last Word).(Council on Foreign Relations)(Brief Article)

It's good to be back at the Council on Foreign 3 Relations," declared Vice President Dick Cheney during a February 15th address to the group. "I've been a member for a long time, and was actually a director for some period of time. I never mentioned that when I was campaigning for reelection back home in Wyoming...." A ripple of knowing laughter greeted the last remark, since Cheney's audience understood the value of keeping such details away from mere voters.

In an October 1999 speech to the CFR, National Security Advisor Samuel L. Berger earned a chuckle or two for a similar swipe at the voting public. A few months earlier, Berger, along with fellow Clinton cabinet members Madeleine Albright and William Cohen, addressed a public meeting at Ohio State University. Their intention was to generate support for a proposed strike on Iraq -- but the crowd, practically of one accord, vehemently expressed disapproval.

That event was part of an administration effort to take the case for an interventionist foreign policy to "the heartland of America, to all the places where hardworking Americans meet to talk about the issues that matter to their daily lives." "We tried that at Ohio State," recalled Berger. "That's why I'm so glad to have this chance to speak here in the Rockefeller Room to the Council on Foreign Relations."

Speaking across the narrow ideological gulf that separates the Bush administration from its predecessor, Cheney and Berger offered remarkably similar expressions of contempt for the public they supposedly serve. Under the political script favored by the ruling Power Elite, voters can support one of the political Establishment's two official retail outlets. They can also enlist in noisy but essentially useless pressure groups wedded to one of the major parties. But activism that takes place outside of this "bipartisan" framework is "extremism" -- particularly if it is intended to hold elected leaders and policymakers accountable. Enter the malicious fraud called "campaign finance reform."

The flawed logic of campaign finance reform dictates that the best way to fight political corruption is to limit what citizens can do to influence government, rather than enforcing constitutional limits on government power. By regulating the ways in which Americans can donate money to preferred candidates and parties, campaign "reform" laws eviscerate the First Amendment's protections for political speech and assembly. Acknowledging this, President Bush originally promised to veto the McCain-Feingold "reform" measure -- before deciding that his obligation was to defend the "spirit of bipartisanship," rather than the ...