I'm not sure if this is a conservative think tank at all. It has been called a liberal think tank by the kind of Conservatives who call everything they dislike 'liberal'. My impression is that Brookings is a moderate, establishment-oriented research institute. It's also a retirement home for middle-of-the-road pols and high-level government analysts. Brookings doesn't do much good, but it doesn't do much harm either. Brookings was the first think tank, founded back in WWI, when the massive wartime expansaion of the federal government created the need for independent research and advice. It was only much later that partisan hacks masquerading as independent researchers would take over the think-tank business...
