As part of my talk at the Freedom Summit, I criticized the public-policy elements of libertarian think tanks. My points were that very few people like to be told what to do by others, and that when supposedly pro-freedom individuals do it it's particularly hypocritical. I took a bit of heat for that, as some people apparently see the good such think tanks do in spreading pro-freedom memes as outweighing the hypocrisy. I'm not convinced of that, but it's a good point.

This isn't entirely on the same level, but it certainly gives me pause ... Op-Eds for Sale reports:

A senior fellow at the Cato Institute resigned from the libertarian think tank on Dec. 15 after admitting that he had accepted payments from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff for writing op-ed articles favorable to the positions of some of Abramoff's clients. Doug Bandow, who writes a syndicated column for Copley News Service, told BusinessWeek Online that he had accepted money from Abramoff for writing between 12 and 24 articles over a period of years, beginning in the mid '90s.

Predictably, the Cato Institute is distancing itself from Bandow's actions ... but I recall what another speaker at the Summit told me in a private conversation: that the Cato Institute's line has shifted to be more Bush-friendly -- because when Cato president Ed Crane calls the White House his calls are taken.

What was that about libertarians being more impervious to the perks of power and influence than the "mere mortals"? Tell me again -- I might just believe it this time. (Heh.)

Thanks to Richard M Smith for the pointer to the article. For those two of you who are still bummed about missing my presentation, once Sunni's Salon is done for this month I plan to turn the presentation into an essay. That'll allow me to do it right, too -- I bolluxed some stuff in the talk.