The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 544
I assume you did get paid a lot, and I assume it was $6.3 million because that's
what Jack Gerard (president and CEO of American Petroleum Institute) gets
paid every year. I can't imagine that a man with your background and credentials would get paid less than what Mr. Gerard gets paid. I realize that there's a
difference between a year's salary and the writing of one article, but you're still
putting your entire career and reputation on the line for the one story. I can see
where $6.3 million is a fair price to pay to get you, an attorney, former Associate
Deputy Attorney General of the United States, former General Counsel of the
American Civil Rights Union, professor at George Mason University School of
Law, and Director of its International Center for Law and Economics, to front for
this Investor's Business Daily story. Even if it sullies your degrees as a Harvard
and Harvard School of Law graduate, and even if it ultimately interferes with
your affiliation with the Heritage and Cato Institutes, getting paid $6.3 million for
one article was well worth it.
Peter...you did get paid $6.3 million, didn't you?
I just had this horrifying thought that you didn't get $6.3 million to throw away
your entire career; maybe you did it for something like $100,000. A hundred
grand is nothing to sneeze at, if that's what you got paid, but it can't be worth
destroying your reputation as a scholar and professional author, can it?
Oh, no, Peter, don't tell me you did it for less than $100,000?
You did, didn't you, you wrote (or at least allowed your name to be used) for
less than $100,000? Oh, for Pete's sake, Peter... (pun intended).
Well, at least you did it for a good cause; at least the article is truthful and righteous; at least the article didn't present any of the usual oil industry lies about
ethanol - that has to salve your conscience for chucking out your integrity, right?
Hmmm, the problem is that the article contains some lies, some invented misinformation, and some outdated and out-of-context data. Peter, Peter, Peter,
what did you do?
Ya' know, Pete, if the article just stuck to criticizing the idiotic Renewable Identification Number system designed to protect the RFS from oil industry fraud,
you could have gotten away with saying that it's "your opinion" as a tax-policy
kind of guy. Then it would be just one needle-nosed tax analyst against another,
if you were ever called on the carpet to explain your involvement. But why did
you have to start the article with the preposterous food-versus-fuel argument?
Didn't anyone tell you that there's nothing to this? Didn't anyone explain the
