On Tuesday, Koch Industries, the company run by the left’s favorite bugaboo, the Koch brothers, sent a letter to the Senate denying that they had anything to do with the government shutdown. Members of the mainstream press, including The New York Times, have attempted to blame the Kochs for the shutdown. So has Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).
“A great deal of what you read and hear about Koch Industries is erroneous or misleading,” Philip Ellender, president of government and public affairs at the Koch Companies, wrote to Reid. “Indeed, there was false information presented about Koch on the Senate floor by Senate Majority Leader Reid, who claimed yesterday that Koch was behind the shutdown of the federal government in an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act or ‘Obamacare.’….Koch has not taken a position on the legislative tactic of tying the continuing resolution to defunding Obamacare nor have we lobbied on legislative provisions defunding Obamacare.”
The left, however, is still operating from the 2012 anti-Romney playbook; if something is wrong, it must be the Koch brothers’ fault.
Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the New York Times bestseller “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).