K Street Project.com

So the fabulous Hotline on Call blog managed to track down the website for the K Street Project. This site is clearly designed to put a nonpartisan face (!) on the practice of lobbyist hiring in Washington, and to attack back at Democrats who, according to the main story, started this project in the first place:

The K Street Project began in the late 1980s in response to an advertisement in Roll Call newspaper placed by a fortune 500 company, looking to hire someone to represent the company in Washington.  The firm's major concerns were promoting free trade, reducing the abuse of tort law, and lowering taxes.  The advertisement said that the firm was looking for a Democrat. Only a Democrat.

Ooh! Time to start up the revisionist history train!

This was the straw that broke the camel's back. For almost forty years Democrats had controlled the House and Senate and demanded that businesses contribute money to their candidates and hire their former congressional staffers and retiring politicians in order to ensure "access."  The men and women the business community hired owed their loyalty to their former employers and often did not agree with the positions of the companies that hired them. They had spent their lives regulating, taxing, and expanding government. They frequently didn't even understand the goals of businesses that simply wished to be alone. 

The goal of the K Street Project was and is quite simple.  We advise companies and trade associations to hire men and women who understand free-market economics, who support their principled positions for free trade, against tort law abuse, and for lower and more transparent taxation.

See, it's only an organization dedicated to get people hired who support the free market! That's not partisan, is it, you commie bastard?

Incidentally, according to the Hotline, this post was passed out in memo form at Grover Norquist's Wednesday meeting. So clearly there's a lot of coordination between this site and the Republican machine.

But the real revelation comes to us in the comments section. I'm reposting it mainly wholesale (with a little editing) because it's such a damn good job of muckraking.

Interesting thing about that website, too -- the domain was first registered (i.e. created) on April 18, 2005. Less than a year ago.

The K Street Project has been around for about a decade. Liberals/progressives have been talking about the wide web of corruption surrounding Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, and the K Street Project for at least a few years.

It's my suspicion that this web site was only recently created to provide the initial appearance of a non-partisan group once the buzz surrounding it started getting wider attention in the media (and in the Department of Justice).

A simple whois lookup shows us that the person responsible for creating kstreetproject.com is one Matthew Braynard:
---
Domain name: kstreetproject.com
Registrant Contact:

Matthew Braynard (matt@braynard.com)
+1.2024235333
Fax: na
1226 N. Vernon Street
na
VA, na
US

Creation date: 18 Apr 2005 20:42:18
Expiration date: 18 Apr 2006 20:42:18
---
Who is Matt Braynard? A simple google search reveals some interesting links:

Search

The first interesting link is to a comment he posted on Pat Buchanan's site:

"Dear Pat,
I agree with you on nearly all issues and wish to see our ideas prevail. Please stay and help me fight within the Republican party. It is where you can make the biggest difference, and that is the only thing that counts.
-- Matt Braynard - Washington, DC"

He was quoted in an article in the Washington Times saying that protesters in DC at an antiwar rally were deliberately blocking ambulances from getting to injured people. Where did I find this gem? Why, Little Green Footballs! Where else!

He might also be a member of Washington DC's largest computer gaming society!

And is the contact person for a 527 PAC called "Doctors for Affordable Healthcare". Apparently the PAC had no contributions or expenditures.

Another comment he made is only available in Google's cache:

Bow before her!

Ann Coulter is the most brilliant columnist to ever walk the earth. She is the smartest woman alive. But I know the real reason why the left hates her - and it's not because of her politics:

It's because she is stunningly beautiful. That is what they hate most about her. In their world, all of the pretty women are suppose to be on their side, not on the right - they are suppose to dedicate their lives to the destruction and hatred - economically, socially, religiously - of life and freedom.

It's the female version of why the left hates Rush Limbaugh - because he is so rich - and self made rich - the worse kind.

Even though Harding is an alleged 'Christian' school, the kind of clowns who wind up working in administrative positions at such a university are still leftists - who else would be drawn to such a job that requires no real work or skill other than schmoozing. They just used the excuse of a lot of complaints to get rid of Ann.

But I wager she will still be on campus - the College Republicans/Conservatives will invite her to speak and mark my words - it will be the _best attended_ lecture in the history of the university.

Face it haters - Ann is God, her words are divine, and her 'fifteen minutes of fame' are going on a steady 10 years since People named her one of the most
Beautiful People in America.

Matt Braynard, Ann Coulter is God, at 4:45 am EDT on September 2, 2005

Bravo to this guy. He speculates that this is some "lonely right-wing geek" who registered the site in an attempt to make some money and get some attention. Clearly it worked, if Norquist is throwing memos defending the K Street Project his way.

The point is that this website is a right-wing hack job recently put up as a propaganda tool to deflect criticism. And the bio of its administrator produces hours of laughter. It is incumbent upon us to laugh, and laugh some more, at the absurdity of its content.