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President Bush went to AEI yesterday, ostensibly to talk about Iraq and Afghanistan. After reading his remarks though, I think the speech might have been better labeled "President Bush gives AEI enough quotes for a year's worth of fund raising pitches." Make no mistake, that's one thing conservatives are very good at: deploying their stars for institution building purposes.

Read the quote below:

I appreciate the chance to come and share some thoughts with the men and women of AEI. I admire AEI a lot--I'm sure you know that. After all, I have been consistently borrowing some of your best people. More than 20 AEI scholars have worked in my administration. A few have returned to the fold--you'll have to wait two more years to get another one to return to the fold. Dick Cheney is occupied. He sends his best.

I appreciate what the AEI stands for. This Institute has been a tireless voice for the principles of individual liberty, free enterprise, limited government, and a strong national defense...

I appreciate the board of directors of the AEI for giving me this forum. Thanks for trying to stay on the leading edge of thought, as well. It's really important that ideas be conceived, circulated and embraced. I want to thank members of the Congress who have joined us today--there they are. Good, yes. All friends--Pete King from New York, Trent Franks from Arizona, Mario Diaz-Balart from Florida, and fellow Texan Mike McCaul. Thanks for coming. Appreciate you being here. I thank the members of the diplomatic corps who have joined us; proud you're here. Thanks for taking time out of a busy schedule to come and hear this address. I appreciate members of the United States Armed Forces who have joined us. I thank the dignitaries and friends of the AEI and members of my administration who have joined. Don't linger. Get back to work, but thank you for being here. I fully expect you to stay awake for the entire address.

As scholars and thinkers, you are contributing to a nationwide debate about the direction of the war on terror.

So what has AEI been doing lately to earn such warm praise from the President? Well, there is the recent attempt to use Exxon Mobil's money to buy academic papers discrediting global warming. From the Guardian:

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded think tank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasize the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

And the Washington Post reported on the skepticism within the scientific community, even among scientists who have departed from the consensus on global warming:

AEI visiting scholar Kenneth Green -- one of two researchers who has sought to commission the critiques -- said in an interview that his group is examining the policy debate on global warming, not the science...

At least two academics -- Texas A&M University atmospheric sciences professor Gerald North and Texas A&M climate researcher Steven Schroeder -- turned down AEI's offer because they feared their work would be politicized.

<span>Schroeder, who has worked with Green in the past and has questioned some aspects of traditional climate modeling, said in an interview that he did not think AEI would have skewed his results. But he added that he worried his contribution might have been published alongside "off-the-wall ideas" questioning the existence of global warming.

"We worried our work could be misused even if we produced a reasonable report," Schroeder said. "While any human endeavor can be criticized, the IPCC system greatly exceeds the cooperation, openness and scientific rigorousness of the process applied to any other problem area that has significant effects on society..."

Several environmental activists and climate scientists questioned why AEI would offer a $10,000 honorarium to scientists to critique the IPCC survey. Andrew Dessler, another Texas A&M atmospheric science professor, who has worked with both Schroeder and North, said the move represents an effort by climate skeptics to create "reasonable doubt" in the minds of policymakers who are debating whether to limit greenhouse gases.

And that doesn't even touch the foreign policy debacles born and bred at AEI. Remember, neocons Richard Perle and Vice President Cheney were both at AEI prior to joining the Bush administration. More recently, AEI Scholar Frederick Kagan is the loudest cheerleader for the McCain-Bush escalation in Iraq, with his "A Plan for Success in Iraq" paper that seems to have borrowed its title from Tony Snow's daily briefing.

And then there's this beauty:

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Though the Dutch parliament has insisted on an appeal, as reported by Al Jazeera, the most famous Dutch politician outside the Netherlands was notified that she would be stripped of her Dutch passport because of a lie on her application for asylum. Ali used her grandfather's last name and an incorrect birthdate to prevent her family in Somalia from tracking her down and forcing her into an arranged marriage. However, this has apparently been public knowledge since her successful 2002 run for office and a subject she discussed while campaigning.

It's unclear why immigration minister Rita Verdonk considered this a pressing matter. Al Jazeera's report notes that Verdonk, a member of the same political party as Ali, has been jockeying to be the lead candidate in the next election cycle. Though considering the outrage over this step, while it's apparently in keeping with her hardline approach to rejecting as many asylum seekers and immigrants as possible, she may have lost that chance for good. And her misstep may end up, surprisingly, benefitting the American Enterprise Institute.

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