We have been somewhat remiss in this shebeen in our coverage of Art Pope, the A-ball Kochite who is the prime reason that the newly insane state of North Carolina has become newly insane. Governor Pat McCrory is the most conspicuous of Pope's various marionettes, which also include his pet state legislature as well as Thom Tillis, a brand-new member of the U.S. Senate. Spectacularly, McCrory appointed Pope his state budget director, which is tantamount to hiring Bernie Madoff as your Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now, though, it appears that Pope has a brand-new shiny object in his sights that he would like to break.

A couple of weeks ago, completely out of the blue, the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina, stacked as it is with McCrory/Pope loyalists, fired popular UNC president Tom Ross. The board still has not explained its actions, but Ross was tight with the Democratic establishment in the state, so there's a big old trout in the milk there.

Current members of the board have said little, though some have responded to emailed questions saying they voted to approve Ross' severance agreement even though they fully supported Ross as president. [Board chair John] Fennebrusque seemed to support Ross too, providing not a shred of justification for the dismissal or why it was made now. The current board has been in place for nearly a year and Fennebrusque said there was no precipitating event that forced Friday's decision. It's not even clear who was the driving force on the board to remove Ross or if the call came from legislative leaders, who hand-selected the board members themselves.

Intriguingly, this mysterious dismissal of a guy whose enemies insist was fired because he was doing such a great job (or something) has been accompanied by a widely held suspicion that Pope wants the job for himself. (Shades of the "autonomy" that is proposed in Wisconsin as part of a deal with Governor Scott Walker.) Part of the reason that this suspicion exists is because no other reason for firing Ross makes sense, especially not the ones offered up by the people who actually fired him.

Right-wing pundits have accused people who were understandably confused by the decision to fire Ross and asking about Pope replacing him of being conspiracy theorists - which is the height of irony considering the circumstances. A politically appointed board unexpectedly fires a popular and respected president with no notice or no explanation and nobody even owns up to pushing for him to resign. The head of the board then insists that it wasn't politics that prompted the president's dismissal, and says his age wasn't a factor either, and then proceeds to talk about the incredible job the president is doing.

Pope's notions of the purpose of higher education, and those of the foundation he leads,are quite clear.

But it doesn't take much sleuthing to uncover the Republicans' distaste for the centers and institutes dotting the UNC landscape that were created to explore issues of poverty, civil rights, the environment and energy policy. Places like the Center for Work, Poverty and Opportunity at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. Central University's Institute for Civic Engagement and Social Change. The board of governors has 34 such centers under scrutiny. Why? The explanation is found in a paper published two weeks ago by conservatives at the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy-a nonprofit named for Art Pope's father. The paper is entitled "Renewal in the University," and it sings the praises of academic centers which "restore the spirit of inquiry." But not centers that look into poverty. No, they are the problem, writes author Jay Schalin, because they threaten "thousands of years of Western thought." What we need instead, Schalin argues, is to replace such disruptive centers with new centers paid for by rich people like Pope-"privately funded academic centers" that reinforce for students the traditional values of "liberty" and "free-market economics."

The empire building in places like Wisconsin and North Carolina by local oligarchs like Art Pope, abetted by the useful idiots they install in office, is the basic foundation for the politics of the new Gilded Age. Rarely, however, are things as blatant as this attempt to bring one of the country's finest systems of higher education forcibly into the theocracy of The Market. There are only two actual Koch Brothers, but there are dozens of distant cousins doing the same kind of damage.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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