Krugman writes in his Op-Ed Tankers on the Take that, as we have long suspected, right-wing policy tanks are implicitly and explicitly on the take. It seems so obvious, but he puts things in such clear terms.

For the most part, people employed by right-wing think tanks don't have to be specifically paid to support certain positions, because they understand that supporting those positions comes with the job. Senior fellows at Cato don't decide, after reconsidering the issue, that Social Security shouldn't be privatized. Policy analysts at the Heritage Foundation don't take another look at the data and realize that farmers and small-business owners have nothing to gain from estate tax repeal.

But it turns out that implicit deals between think tanks and the interests that finance them are sometimes, perhaps often, supplemented with explicit payments for punditry. In return for Abramoff checks, Mr. Bandow and Mr. Ferrara wrote op-ed articles about such unlikely subjects as the entrepreneurial spirit of the Mississippi Choctaws and the free-market glories of the Northern Mariana Islands.

And Krugman, wisely I think, predicts there will be a similar attack on liberal think-tanks.

First, if the latest pay-for-punditry story starts to get traction, the usual suspects will claim that liberal think tanks and opinion writers are also on the take. (I'm getting my raincoat ready for the slime attack on my own ethics I'm sure this column will provoke.) Reporters and editors will be tempted to give equal time to these accusations, however weak the evidence, in an effort to appear "balanced." They should resist the temptation. If this is overwhelmingly a story about Republican lobbyists and conservative think tanks, as I believe it is - there isn't any Democratic equivalent of Jack Abramoff - that's what the public deserves to be told.

He makes a very good point though when he says that it's been obvious for a long time that the conservative think-tanks are blatant hacks that write whatever their underwriters want. I agree, and I also think he's correct when he says this is likely to be a Republican/right-wing problem. Liberals don't believe what they believe dogmatically (except for dirty hippies), they base policy decisions on empirical data. Think about it. Liberals don't support sex-ed because they think teenagers should be getting laid more (although I bet it would stop some young Republicans in their tracks), they do it because the science shows, again and again, that it is more effective in preventing teen pregnancy and STDs than the abstinence education that has been the standby for millenia. Liberals don't support the right of women to obtain abortion because they're psychotic baby-killers, they do it because they know the bans are ineffective and only lead to more human misery. Krugman's got a good point, this is a story that could have some legs on exposing the pay-for-play side of Republican think tanks and is unlikely to snap back and hit Democratic/liberal think tanks.