On think tank “independence”: who is funding what, and for which purpose?

Thomas Medvetz has written a powerful comment on a recent NYT times article, which reported on how foreign governments use think tanks in Washington for lobby purposes. Medvetz points to other private industry funding for lobbying through think tanks in the United States and to the necessary complicity of journalists in this process. Remains to point to the use of think tanks in European and other countries for U.S. government and private sector lobby purposes (e.g. the financing of climate change scepticism in Europe by Exxon Mobile or the recent offer of T-TIP small grants by the U.S. Embassy).