I don't always agree with what the Manhattan Institute does, of course, but here's Tom Wolfe writing about how the Manhattan Institute got Charles Murray started:

[Charles]Murray had done the dog’s work of combing through reams of statistical studies of welfare programs, many of them undertaken after Lyndon Johnson launched his War on Poverty in 1965. The typical War on Poverty study, Murray noticed, opened with a hazy but, on balance, optimistic summary—followed by miles of statistics that contradicted it. [Tom Wolfe—.Turning Intellect Into Influence]

Boy, does that sound familiar!