The Koch Cancer spreads to Cato Institute.

Isn’t it ironic that David Koch, a big supporter of cancer research, has seen his brand of politics turn into the cancer that even conservative groups fear will kill them?

I’d like to see Scott Walker supporters defend the poor picked on Koch brothers now:

NY Times: From its perch in a spacious brand-new headquarters blocks from the White House, the Cato Institute has built on its reputation as a venerable libertarian research center unafraid to cross party lines. Now, however, a rift with one of its founding members — the billionaire conservative Charles Koch — is threatening the institute’s identity and independence, its leaders say, and is exposing fault lines over Mr. Koch’s aggressive and well-financed brand of Republican politics.

While Democrats have been criticized for claiming the Koch’s were putting in place lackey politicians and phony tea party organizations to kill public education and green energy, the Koch’s were also doing the same thing at the libertarian Cato Institute:

The rift has its roots, Cato officials said, in a long-simmering feud over efforts by Mr. Koch and his brother David Koch to install their own people on the institute’s 16-member board and to establish a more direct pipeline between Cato and the family’s Republican political outlets, including groups that Democrats complain have mounted a multimillion-dollar assault on President Obama. Tensions reached a new level with a lawsuit filed last week by the Kochs against Cato over its governing structure. “We can’t be perceived as a mouthpiece of special interests,” Robert A. Levy, chairman of Cato’s board, said in an interview. “The Cato Institute as we know it would be destroyed.”

Of course the Koch's have their familiar denial, the one they've given over and over again:

 “We support Cato and its work,” Mr. Koch said in a statement. “We are not acting in a partisan manner, we seek no ‘takeover,’ and this is not a hostile action.”

Of course not. They're not helping Scott Walker win the recall election either. It’s starting to look like Koch “conservatism” has become a raging cancer that may just kill its host, the Republican Party.

“This is an effort by the Kochs to turn the Cato Institute into some sort of auxiliary for the G.O.P.,” said Edward H. Crane, who is president of Cato and co-founded it with Charles Koch.