The Conspiracy to Exploit the Koch Conspiracy

Over at Politico, Kenneth Vogel has his second piece in just a few days reacting to Matthew Continetti's cover story in THE WEEKLY STANDARD about the left's obsession with the Koch brothers.

In Vogel's latest, he notes some interesting details about the assault on the Kochs and how it's being coordinated from the highest levels of the country's most prominent liberal groups:

Back in Washington last month, representatives from Common Cause, Greenpeace, Public Citizen and Think Progress huddled with researchers from the Service Employees International Union at SEIU headquarters to figure out how to make the most of the sudden focus on the Kochs. And meeting participants have continued to trade research about the Kochs and strategize via a Koch-related email listserv and a rolling series of conference calls.

“It’s amazed me frankly that other groups have gotten interested in what we’re doing” on the Koch brothers, said former Democratic congressman Bob Edgar, the president of Common Cause, which – partly through the Koch campaign – has transformed itself from a wonky campaign finance and ethics advocate into a feisty watchdog and boosted its fundraising. “Maybe what we did is give (other groups) a little hope to explore the issues in a little more aggressive way.”

Behind-the-scenes conference calls? Email listservs? Opposition research? It sounds an awful lot like liberal groups are guilty of the kind of conspiratorial scheming that the Kochs have been accused of. And rather than trying to advance an agenda, they're just trying to take someone down.