We are delighted to post the latest offering of Project S.H.A.M.E., a media transparency initiative led by Yasha Levine and Mark Ames.

Megan McArdle

Special correspondent on economics, business and public policy; Newsweek/The Daily Beast





Megan McArdle is a Koch-trained conservative activist working as a business journalist and pundit. She earned her MBA from the University of Chicago, received journalism training at the Kochs’ flagship libertarian think-tank, the Institute for Humane Studies, and has used her position at The Atlantic and, most recently, Newsweek/The Daily Beast, to run cover for and promote Koch interests and the Republican Party agenda. In early 2009, a GOP outfit backed by the Kochs hailed McArdle for her “leadership role in … re-branding the Republican party.” McArdle continues to conceal the extent of her deeply conflicted relationships with the Koch influence-peddling machine.

The recovered history of Megan McArdle

Wall of S.H.A.M.E.

“I don’t see any evidence offered that Koch money funds FreedomWorks, or any astroturfing organization . . . ” “…from what I know of [the Kochs], astroturfing doesn’t really seem like their style.”

—From McArdle’s attack on an investigative article exposing the first Tea Party protest as a Koch/FreedomWorks Astroturf campaign; February 2009

“I’ve seen Koch [sic] in action at private events, and though I’ll respect the privacy [sic], I’ll say that even in the company of other like-minded rich people, [Charles Koch] displayed rather a mania for honest dealing.”

—McArdle on the Kochs’ moral character; February 2009

“My husband once had a fellowship with the Charles G. Koch Foundation, and works for Reason Magazine, which has been a recipient of funds from Koch charitable organizations.”

—McArdle issues a partial disclosure about her husband’s Koch ties; February 2012

“I also disagree with the notion that the concentration of wealth is a large political problem. … while the wealthy certainly have the ear of politicians, and also give a lot of money to those politicians, it’s not clear to me how tightly these things are linked on matters of broad national policy.”

—McArdle isn’t bothered by economic inequality and concentration of wealth; February 2008

“consumption inequality, not income inequality, is what matters. If the rich have access to broad classes of goods that the poor can’t have, I find this worrying. On the other hand, if the problem is that Bill Gates has a really awesome 80 inch flat panel television, while the poor have to be content with a 32 inch CRT, well, I can’t say my heartstrings are plucked very tight by this injustice.”

—On why she doesn’t believe in income inequality; July 2009

“Borrowers were not brought down by predatory lending. . . . Borrowers were brought down by a willingness to gamble on rising home prices–exactly the same thing that knocked out Lehman Brothers. At least Lehman Brothers had the excuse that ten years of rising prices had completely screwed up their default models.”

—McArdle on why homeowners were more to blame than bankers for tanking the economy; September 2008

To me, the unsung villain of the mortgage crisis is the 30-year fixed rate self-amortizing mortgage with no prepayment penalty…The 30 year fixed rate mortgage was ultimately at the heart of the Savings and Loan crisis.

—McArdle discovers another red herring to blame; July 2010

Am I suggesting that the Iraqis should pay for occupation expenses? Nope. We can afford it, and there’s something repellent about making impoverished Iraqis pay for a war foisted on them by an evil dictator. But most of that $2t, if it is any sort of a real number, will be stuff for Iraqis: roads, schools, hospitals, government buildings, power plants and sewers and all the good stuff that lets us live like citizens of the 21st century. That stuff should come out of Iraqi oil revenues.

—McArdle belittling Iraq war critics Eric Alterman as “nuts” and economist James Galbraith as “paranoiac” for (correctly) predicting the war would cost trillions; March 2003

“I love Cato. I love school choice. I read their stuff all the time, and I think a lot of it is great. I cite it and use it.”

—McArdle on the quality of Cato Institute’s scholarship; May 2008

“For some reason, marriage always and everywhere, in every culture we know about, is between a man and a woman; this seems to be an important feature of the institution. We should not go mucking around and changing this extremely important institution, because if we make a bad change, the institution will fall apart.

—McArdle argues against rushing to legalize gay marriage, which she described as “a bedrock of our society” and compared gay marriage rights to a government welfare program; April 2005

“One of the dividing lines between me and a lot of the commentators on the Wall Street crisis is that I am not outraged by their pay.”

—McArdle explains her position on exorbitant Wall Street bonuses; April 2009

McArdle on Science

“Here’s the thing: humans aren’t like bonobos. And do you know how I know that we are not like bonobos? Because we’re not like bonobos.”

—McArdle explains why she’s not convinced by evolutionary biology; August 2010

“I’ve basically outsourced my opinion on the science to people like Jonathan Adler, Ron Bailey, and Pat Michaels of Cato . . .”

—McArdle on where she gets her climate change information; February 2012. (Pat Michaels admitted on CNN he gets 40% of his funding from the petroleum industry.)

Undisclosed Koch Work

View full IHS anniversary dinner brochure (pdf file)

Megan McArdle frequently speaks at and moderates conferences and events hosted by Koch-funded organizations, including Cato Institute, Mercatus, the Institute of Humane Studies and many others. Here is a partial list (in reverse chronological order):

Notes: