« What's Right And Wrong With The Blogosphere | Main | CapitolLink: A 'Cynical' Vote On Minimum Wage »
July 30, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
No Cato Love Lost For Patrick Hynes
Word that Patrick Hynes is doing blog-related consulting work for AARP doesn't sit well with a former colleague of his at the Cato Institute.
Radley Balko, a policy analyst at Cato who blogs at The Agitator, questioned Hynes' integrity in working for AARP soon after leaving Cato, where he said Hynes' job "was to be the PR point guy for Cato's Social Security Choice campaign."
Balko complained that AARP is "probably the one group that did the most to derail President Bush's plans for private [retirement] accounts." "Perhaps one of the righty blogs defending Hynes' integrity can explain his representation of ... the group that wants to expand Medicare, kill private accounts and enact all sorts of other monstrous, big-government federal entitlements," Balko added.
Reached by telephone, Hynes said such criticism is irrelevant because he is "not even doing any policy work for AARP." He reiterated his previous description of the consulting work: "They have a blog, they want to make it a better blog, and I'm helping them do it."
UPDATE: Andrew Kline, the editorial-page editor for The Union Leader in New Hampshire, reported on a bad experience he had with Hynes. In that case, Hynes wrote a column for the newspaper about pending state legislation without noting that his company had a state client who supported the bill in question. Instead, Hynes listed his affiliation as being with an environmental group that did not exist. (Hat tip to Balko.)
UPDATE II: Here's a defense of Hynes, via Instapundit.
Posted by Danny | 08:37 PM
