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We return this week to the conservative crusade to destroy the reputation of financier and philanthropist George Soros. The Hungarian-born billionaire has driven Republicans to distraction for two reasons. First, after decades of dedicating his fortune to fighting for democracy and civil society in his native Eastern Europe, he has turned his attention to the United States, where he is spending as much as $15 million to help various liberal groups improve their efforts to expose the malfeasance of the Bush Administration and defeat it in 2004. Second, in response to some surprise questioning at a meeting with Jewish leaders last year, Soros offered his opinion that Israeli foreign policy is in significant measure responsible for increasing anti-Semitism around the world.
The attacks have been ratcheted up in recent weeks because the Republicans see his prominent role in funding organizations like America Coming Together, MoveOn.org and the Center for American Progress (where I am a senior fellow) as a means to tar John Kerry as a dangerous radical by association. They'd also like to scare off others who might be considering such roles for themselves. The Republican National Committee has circulated a briefing paper on Capitol Hill in which Soros is referred to as "Lord of the Democrats" and the "Daddy Warbucks" of the drug legalization movement, and which highlights what it deems to be his controversial positions on abortion, gun control and the right to end one's own life...
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040705&s=alterman