Republicans have to be taught the things the rest of America already knows
President Bush has ordered White House staff to attend mandatory briefings beginning next week on ethical behavior and the handling of classified material after the indictment last week of a senior administration official in the CIA leak probe.
Ken Tomlinson must have gotten a hall pass.
Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees most government broadcasts to foreign countries, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, is the subject of an inquiry into accusations of misuse of federal money and the use of phantom or unqualified employees, officials involved in that examination said on Friday.
Mr. Tomlinson was ousted from the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on Thursday after its inspector general concluded an investigation that was critical of him. That examination looked at his efforts as chairman of the corporation to seek more conservative programs on public radio and television.
It’s as if there’s a Republican Culture of Corruption at the highest level of government, stinking from the head on down.
They’re providing “refresher lectures on general ethics rules”? Oh man. Stick a fork in this administration, it’s done.
Will Bush be attending?
“You see ethics are…. Well business ethics can be seen as…. the key to ethics….. AAAHHHHH!!!!” (Shameless Billy Madison quote) The sad thing about Republicans is that they supposedly have the market on “morals” … please, but sadly they can’t have ethics because it gets in the way of thier style of politics. Guys like Tomlinson, would have you believe that the “ethical” thing to would be balancing PBS, unfortunately the network that educates and gives kids things like Arthur and is not spewing Communist propaganda. The unethical thing is that Republicans simply want to divide and conquer as shown by PBS power grab, TOm Delay et al. Give Bush credit, for a man so aloof is putting a pretty face or dare I say politically correct face on his problems. I am still too cynical though because this “ethics” training is probably being used unethically to hide more problems rather than face them.
So now no one will be overseing PBS’ left wing programming. Lets bring Mike Moore on board (he’s just Bill Moyers without the refried bean stains on his shirt front). Oliver Stone could give us his take on the Plame affair. I mean on asite that considers the NY Times conservative, that weould be balance.
They could have had out and out commies and didn’t. What are we complaining about.
Dugger
As folks who have worked in corporate America may know, this is a CYA move, standard of the aftermath of sexual harassment charges. From a legal standpoint, it shows that the company is working to lessen the damage and keep such an event from happening later. This looks better in court when the judge is setting a number for damages or determining a hostile work environment. It is done not for the sake of itself, but rather because not having done it looks bad.
What this would have to do with a criminal case is not clear. It may help Team Bush in the later civil case that the Wilsons have filed, and of course, there is its worth as PR. The thing that strikes me the most is again, this is something from the corporate world. It is telling that it would use its corporate principles to help it in a political, civil legal case.
Dugger brings up Bill Moyers and proclaims PBS is a left-wing media outlet.
Let’s see…where did Wm. F. Buckley have his show? Know where John McLaughlin got his start? Ben Wattenberg? Morton Kondracke? In fact, for many years, the only black news talk show was hosted by a black GOPer (Tony Brown) on PBS.
Of course, for many years, PBS had that commie-symp Louis Rukeyser in the programming.
Diamond LeG is exactly right–it’s a CYA move.
Invariably, AWOL George or his handlers will be asked about the many, many ethical lapses on his watch. So they’ll want to make noises about how they believe in ethics and honesty and ‘oh, by the way, I’ve ordered everyone in the WH to undergo training…’
This is a fairly common occurence at DoD and other federal agencies. When the Boeing story hit the fan awhile back–3 days later all DoD employees were directed to mandatory ethics in contracting training. Recently, the same thing happened 3 days after Safavian was arrested.
Dugger;
Tomlinson was your idea of regulating the left wing at PBS?
Another Rovian pogrom.
http://www.freepress.net/publicbroadcasting/
Doesn’t Limbaugh rant and rave about PBS now and then? I bring this up because Dugger has to get his opinion from somewhere, and it appears he doesn’t actually watch PBS much.
Semant,
Try a splash of cold water. Oversee does not equal regulate.
buma,
You hate Bush. Osama bin Laden hates Bush. I bring this up because you must get your opinion from Bush someplace. How is OBL, BTW?
Dugger , Forever Hosing Chitinous Left Wing Orthodoxy off of America’s Windshield