The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Google Meets Grover

Text Size

No, this isn't a story from "Sesame Street" as the title might seem to portray. No, this is far more frivolous. Grover's meetings are off the record, but yesterday's meeting involved the kind of misdirection that has to be reported.

Yesterday at Grover Norquist’s "Wednesday Meeting" was attended by Jamie Brown, a former White House legislative liaison whose portfolio involved mostly judicial issues. She also was a Department of Justice political appointee during the first term, working for Attorney General John Ashcroft in the legislative shop, as well as third-party outreach. Since then, Brown has signed on with Google to be their chief policy and lobbying representative in Washington.

Brown arrived at Grover’s handing out Google hats and glad-handing, with a PR flack in tow who introduced Brown to the crowd as a solid Republican. Why the PR attention? Because Google has taken a beating over its politics and its pro-regulation approach to the Internet of late, and apparently hired Brown to make nice.

Brown stood up and claimed that she was a solid Republican, and that it was not true -- as reported here - that Google gave “one red cent to Moveon.org and neither did any of its executives, adding that she couldn’t work for a company that did.

Google rightly has taken some grief for its underwriting of political activism, its relationship to MoveOn.org, its sizable investment in Al Gore’s activities over the past the three years, as well as its contributions to a group of Internet companies led by former Rep. Vin Weber that is seeking to regulate the Internet. The hiring of Brown is apparently meant to make all of that go away.

The problem is: Brown is simply wrong on the facts. Since Google executives have overwhelmingly given to Democratic causes, including MoveOn.org, and the giving is even more impressive when you consider that Google does not have a PAC.

For example, 89% of all Google giving goes to Democrats and their organizations:

$124,000 to various John Kerry committees

$63,625 to the Democratic National Committee (DNC)

$42,250 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)

$7,654 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC)

About 8% went to left-wing political groups, including:

$18,765 to MoveOn.org

$8,050 to America Coming Together (ACT)

And, to be fair, 1% did go to Republicans

The fact is that Google has gone out of its way to fund individuals and projects in Washington that have actively worked against Republicans and conservative causes. It’s a company more than willing to get in bed with the Chinese government for the promise of a few bucks to censor pro-democratic materials from Chinese citizens. It does help fund MoveOn.org, and now is seeking federal legislation that foist the majority of costs for the Internet to consumers.

Before she stands before conservatives who are probably inclined to believe her, Brown should know the facts about her own company. Or perhaps her company is doing to her what it’s doing to the Chinese citizens – controlling what information she receives.

topics:
NATO