More Truth
Investigations continue


After posting the article on the Energy Task Force, I encountered yet another instance of the Bush administration violating the law to promote political ends in the WP's Broadcast Chief Violated Laws, Inquiry Finds :

Investigators at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting said on Tuesday that they had uncovered evidence that its former chairman had repeatedly broken federal law and the organization's own regulations in a campaign to combat what he saw as liberal bias

A report by the corporation's inspector general, sent to Congress on Tuesday, described a dysfunctional organization that appeared to have violated the Public Broadcasting Act, which created the corporation and was written to insulate programming decisions from politics.

The former chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, who was ousted from the board two weeks ago when it was presented with the details of the report in a closed session, has said he sought to enforce a provision of the broadcasting act meant to ensure objectivity and balance in programming.

But in the process, the report said, Mr. Tomlinson repeatedly crossed statutory boundaries that had set up the corporation as a "heat shield" to protect public radio and television from political interference.

[. . . .]

The report said investigators found evidence that Mr. Tomlinson had violated federal law by being heavily involved in getting more than $4 million for a program featuring writers of the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal.

It said he had imposed a "political test" to recruit a new president of the corporation. And it said his decision to hire Republican consultants to defeat legislation violated contracting rules.

[. . . .]

The investigators found evidence that "political tests" were a major criterion used by Mr. Tomlinson in recruiting the corporation's new president, Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee and a former senior State Department official.

[. . . . ]

The report said politics might have been involved in other personnel decisions. In one case, it said, a candidate to become the senior vice president for corporate and public affairs was asked by a board member about her political contributions in the last election. Another official was given a particular job title at the corporation at the request of the White House, it said.

To Republicans, the personnel changes in the board are no big deal compared with the Clinton changes in the White House travel office (the politicalization of which truly threatened national security). On the other hand, legislation to ensure political independence in public broadcasting can be ignored. Why not have the media be the mouthpiece of the party in power? Have they no shame?