El Somnambulo’s article on the Caesar Rodney Institute, while answering many of the questions he had going in, have raised several more.
‘Bulo’s favorite Geezer wrote:
If all these people being Republicans were no big deal, Republicans wouldn’t be all worked up over El Som pointing that out, would they?
While The Beast Who Slumbers is indeed bemused by the outraged response, ‘bulo is more interested in the Dog That Hasn’t Barked, aka The Dog the Lapdogs Won’t Mention By Name, aka Charles Lamotte Irenee Eleuthere Bouvier de Flanders Copeland.
If the issues surrounding CRI were merely that (a) it misrepresents itself as a mainstream organization full of media go-to-guys; and (b) rather than a ‘center-right’ organization, or its later characterization as a ‘conservative-leaning’ think tank, it’s a wild-eyed free-market anti-regulatory organization, then the purpose of the story would be to sound a cautionary note to the media to be more diligent when presenting spokespersons without placing their bias into context.
However, any significant involvement by party leader and frequent Republican candidate Copeland would place this into a far more serious context, at least for ‘bulo. If one examines the composition of the staff and the Board of Directors assuming significant involvement by Mr. Transparency himself, it would be difficult not to wonder whether this purported think tank is, in fact, merely a vehicle to enable Copeland to keep his once-and-future campaign team on generous retainer, enable them to do his opposition research through this supposed non-partisan think tank vehicle (remember, folks, they hired investigative reporter Lee Williams), and enable the board members to serve to amplify Copeland’s message.
Before the usual suspects blast this theory as being outrageous, please remember that El Somnambulo laid out an awful lot of Copeland ties to CRI, and yesterday asked Copeland the following plus made him a generous offer:
So, with Copeland’s fingerprints all over CRI, El Somnambulo has these questions for Charles Copeland: In what capacity, if any, are you involved with the Caesar Rodney Institute? Are you supporting CRI in any financial capacity and, if so, to what extent? What role did you play, and do you continue to play, in the choice of staff and/or board positions for the CRI? If you are involved in CRI, why have you chosen not to provide the same transparency to your role as you demand of state government, for example?
El Somnambulo offers Senor Copeland as much space as he needs here to answer said questions and to expound on his vision (if, indeed, it is his vision) for CRI. The only caveat is that he must answer the questions first in order to be afforded the opportunity to expound.
Does this offer strike any of the would-be outraged as unfair? Copeland can take all the time he wants, here, on Delaware Liberal, to talk about CRI and, if he wants to, anything else he’d like to talk about. All he has to do is to answer the questions.
Finally, ‘bulo was nonplussed by this quote from Dave Burris, heretofore the ‘go-to-guy’ on defending CRI and fecklessly questioning the veracity of ‘bulo’s reporting:
Sorry I wasn’t clear: It’s none of your business where they get their money. (I don’t know either.) When they begin using tax dollars, then you can ask for transparency.
The Beast Who Slumbers will not call El Burrito Junior a liar. He just finds it so hard to believe that a guy who seemingly has chapter and verse defending CRI at his fingertips for instantaneous responses doesn’t know…(‘Bulo. Let. It. Go.)
But if Delaware’s leading Republican official this side of Mike Castle is funding this seeming stalking-horse with an eye on his political future, ‘bulo believes it’s both the public’s business and perhaps even the IRS’ business.
So, ‘bulo calls on Charlie Copeland to tell his surrogates to step down and to come out to answer what ‘bulo believes to be legitimate questions.
Charlie, transparency will set us all free.
Your Amigo on Behalf of Openness,
El Somnambulo