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am 11. November 2003 18:15:30:

Soros: Bush is a danger to the world

Billionaire Soros
takes on Bush

Ousting president ‘central
focus of my life,’ he says


By Laura Blumenfeld
THE WASHINGTON POST



NEW YORK, Nov. 11 — George Soros, one of the world’s richest men, has given
away nearly $5 billion to promote democracy in the former Soviet bloc, Africa
and Asia. Now he has a new project: defeating President Bush.


“IT IS THE central focus of my life,” Soros said, his blue eyes settled on an
unseen target. The 2004 presidential race, he said in an interview, is “a
matter of life and death.”
Soros, who has financed efforts to promote open societies in more than 50
countries around the world, is bringing the fight home, he said. On Monday, he
and a partner committed up to $5 million to MoveOn.org, a liberal activist
group, bringing to $15.5 million the total of his personal contributions to
oust Bush.

‘A DANGER TO THE WORLD’
Overnight, Soros, 74, has become the major financial player of the left. He
has elicited cries of foul play from the right. And with a tight nod, he
pledged: “If necessary, I would give more money.”

“America, under Bush, is a danger to the world,” Soros said. Then he smiled:
“And I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”
Soros believes a “supremacist ideology” guides this White House. He hears
echoes in its rhetoric of his childhood in occupied Hungary. “When I hear Bush
say, ‘You’re either with us or against us,’ it reminds me of the Germans.” It
conjures up memories, he said, of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hort
mit (“The enemy is listening”): “My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule
have sensitized me,” he said in a soft Hungarian accent.
Soros’s contributions are filling a gap in Democratic Party finances that
opened after the restrictions in the 2002 McCain-Feingold law took effect. In
the past, political parties paid a large share of television and
get-out-the-vote costs with unregulated “soft money” contributions from
corporations, unions and rich individuals. The parties are now barred from
accepting such money. But non-party groups in both camps are stepping in,
accepting soft money and taking over voter mobilization.
“It’s incredibly ironic that George Soros is trying to create a more open
society by using an unregulated, under-the-radar-screen, shadowy, soft-money
group to do it,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson
said. “George Soros has purchased the Democratic Party.”
In past election cycles, Soros contributed relatively modest sums. In 2000,
his aide said, he gave $122,000, mostly to Democratic causes and candidates.
But recently, Soros has grown alarmed at the influence of neoconservatives,
whom he calls “a bunch of extremists guided by a crude form of social
Darwinism.”


Neoconservatives, Soros said, are exploiting the terrorist attacks of Sept.
11, 2001, to promote a preexisting agenda of preemptive war and world
dominion. “Bush feels that on September 11th he was anointed by God,” Soros
said. “He’s leading the U.S. and the world toward a vicious circle of
escalating violence.”

‘THE SOROS DOCTRINE’
Soros said he had been waking at 3 a.m., his thoughts shaking him “like an
alarm clock.” Sitting in his robe, he wrote his ideas down, longhand, on a
stack of pads. In January, PublicAffairs will publish them as a book, “The
Bubble of American Supremacy” (an excerpt appears in December’s Atlantic
Monthly). In it, he argues for a collective approach to security, increased
foreign aid and “preventive action.”
“It would be too immodest for a private person to set himself up against the
president,” he said. “But it is, in fact” — he chuckled — “the Soros
Doctorine.”
His campaign began last summer with the help of Mort Halpern, a liberal think
tank veteran. Soros invited Democratic strategists to his house in
Southampton, Long Island, including Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta,
Jeremy Rosner, Robert Boorstin and Carl Pope.
They discussed the coming election. Standing on the back deck, the evening sun
angling into their eyes, Soros took aside Steve Rosenthal, CEO of the liberal
activist group America Coming Together (ACT), and Ellen Malcolm, its
president. They were proposing to mobilize voters in 17 battleground states.
Soros told them he would give ACT $10 million.
Asked about his moment in the sun, Rosenthal deadpanned: “We were
disappointed. We thought a guy like George Soros could do more.” Then he
laughed. “No, kidding! It was thrilling.”
Malcolm: “It was like getting his Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.”
“They were ready to kiss me,” Soros quipped.
‘If someone guaranteed it.’
— GEORGE SOROS
Asked if he would become poor to beat Bush Before coffee the next morning, his
friend Peter Lewis, chairman of the Progressive Corp., had pledged $10 million
to ACT. Rob Glaser, founder and CEO of RealNetworks, promised $2 million. Rob
McKay, president of the McKay Family Foundation, gave $1 million and
benefactors Lewis and Dorothy Cullman committed $500,000.
Soros also promised up to $3 million to Podesta’s new think tank, the Center
for American Progress.
Soros will continue to recruit wealthy donors for his campaign. Having put a
lot of money into the war of ideas around the world, he has learned that
“money buys talent; you can advocate more effectively.”
At his home in Westchester, N.Y., he raised $115,000 for Democratic
presidential candidate Howard Dean. He also supports Democratic presidential
contenders Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark and Rep.
Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.).
In an effort to limit Soros’s influence, the RNC sent a letter to Dean Monday,
asking him to request that ACT and similar organizations follow the
McCain-Feingold restrictions limiting individual contributions to $2,000.

‘WATCHDOGGING HIM CLOSELY’
The RNC is not the only group irked by Soros. Fred Wertheimer, president of
Democracy 21, which promotes changes in campaign finance, has benefited from
Soros’s grants over the years. Soros has backed altering campaign finance, an
aide said, donating close to $18 million over the past seven years.
“There’s some irony, given the supporting role he played in helping to end the
soft money system,” Wertheimer said. “I’m sorry that Mr. Soros has decided to
put so much money into a political effort to defeat a candidate. We will be
watchdogging him closely.”
An aide said Soros welcomes the scrutiny. Soros has become as rich as he has,
the aide said, because he has a preternatural instinct for a good deal.
Asked whether he would trade his $7 billion fortune to unseat Bush, Soros
opened his mouth. Then he closed it. The proposal hung in the air: Would he
become poor to beat Bush?
He said: “If someone guaranteed it.”


an Soros gibt es bestimmt viel zu kritisieren aber jetzt ist bei ihm die Altersweisheit eingekehrt. Bleibt zu hoffen, daß er die Aktion überlebt.

lg

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