Since we're playing that game, sourcewatch is published by prwatch. Some of their funders are listed at: http://www.prwatch.org/finances.html

see also http://www.prwatch.org/pdfs/2008_990_Disclosure.PDF .

What makes you think that those folks are on the up-and-up?

Ad hominem doesn't just go one way....

Uh, the publicly-edited, well-sourced, and very thorough Sourcewatch wiki article isn't even in the same galaxy as "ad hominem".

Personally, I think it makes Cato look good. I don't always agree with Cato or what they do, but they are at the very least consistent in their principles and don't misrepresent the fact that they explicitly represent corporate interests, both things that are incredibly unusual among D.C. think tanks.

> Uh, the publicly-edited, well-sourced, and very thorough Sourcewatch wiki article isn't even in the same galaxy as "ad hominem".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

An ad hominem (Latin: "to the man"), also known as argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise.

The suggestion was that something from cato was bad because its supporters were bad, which is ad hominem. The accuracy of the list doesn't change that.

FYI, the Cato Institute was founded partly by Charles Koch, and you can research that yourself if you want.

ad hominem

I think funders are generally fair game to consider when looking at someone expressing an opinion that directly impacts the funders. There are good reasons that conflict-of-interest rules exist for folks like judges and even schoolteachers. We don't have legislatively-mandated conflict-of-interest rules for pundits and think-tanks, but imo it's still fair for individuals to consider whether conflicts of interest might exist.

> I think funders are generally fair game to consider when looking at someone expressing an opinion that directly impacts the funders.

You mean like folks pushing the net neutrality proposal?

You're kidding, right?