The fun in the comments last night was all about the Progressive Caucus’s letter. From what I could see before I racked out, everyone was pretty pissed. Including me. Between then and now a fair amount of new information has come out. It turns out the letter was initially drafted back over the summer and the Progressive Caucus decided not to circulate it. Then, for some bizarre reason, the date was changed on it and it was pushed out yesterday. It appears someone close to the Quincy Institute was involved:
6/ I’ll note that the Quincy folks were pretty pumped when the letter came out and seemed to have their own write up pretty much right when the Post broke the story. https://t.co/Qmn3iYSgEK
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 25, 2022
The Quincy Institute is largely built around one man’s grief at the loss of his son in combat. A grief that has pushed his exceedingly accurate critiques about how the US uses its national power into an almost reflexive isolationism. Which is, perhaps, why the Koch Foundation is funding it. The Kochs are polite/genteel isolationists. They also contribute funding to Ian Bremmer’s non-profit foundation. So keep that in mind when you see his stuff as well. Anyhow, since last night the letter has been withdrawn and a number of the most prominent members of the caucus who signed it back in June or July have issued explanations why they initially supported it, surprise at it being released, and reiteration of their support for Ukraine.
Several things need to happen in the wake of the letter being issued. The first is the Progressive Caucus is going to have to clean house in terms of its staff. They are going to have too quickly and deeply figure out who is responsible for releasing the letter, fire that person or persons, and be transparent about it. The second is that proper scrutiny into who is actually funding the Quincy Institute, what they expect from that funding, and the actual affiliations/connections of the subject matter experts and staff employed there, needs to happen.
Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump: