And I thought [tag]Ken[/tag] Tomlinson’s partisan, ideological, and generally ridiculous work as Bush’s chairman of the [tag]Corporation for Public Broadcasting[/tag] was bad before. As it turns out, it was even worse than I realized.
State Department investigators have found that the head of the agency overseeing most government broadcasts to foreign countries has used his office to run a “horse racing operation” and that he improperly put a friend on the payroll, according to a summary of a report made public on Tuesday by a Democratic lawmaker.
The report said that the official, Kenneth Y. [tag]Tomlinson[/tag], had repeatedly used government employees to perform personal errands and that he billed the government for more days of work than the rules permit.
The summary of the report, prepared by the State Department inspector general, said the United States attorney’s office here had been given the report and decided not to conduct a criminal inquiry. The summary said the Justice Department was pursuing a civil inquiry focusing on the contract for Mr. Tomlinson’s friend.
This is actually the second instance of Tomlinson getting caught breaking the law. Last November, we learned that he violated the Federal Broadcasting Act, which prohibits the use of “political tests” in employment.
We’re dealing with a man who has lied, schemed, and politicized his way through nearly three years of government service. But let’s not forget one key detail: he’s still working in the administration, in a key diplomatic post.
Nearly a year ago, Tomlinson resigned from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, after a series of amateurish scandals. Yet, despite all of his humiliating hackery at the [tag]CPB[/tag], [tag]Karl Rove[/tag] also made Tomlinson the head of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent government commission that oversees the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty, and Radio Sawa and its sister TV network, Alhurra — making Tomlinson a key person in America’s international diplomacy.
As Franklin Foer explained in a very good TNR piece a year ago, Tomlinson has run the [tag]BBG[/tag] just as he ran the CPB, “purging the bureaucracy of political enemies, zealously rooting out perceived ‘liberal bias,’ and generally politicizing institutions that have resisted ideological intrusions for decades.”
And now he’s been caught, again, misusing government resources and violating government personnel policies. How long will the White House stand by this clown?
As Nico noted, Reps. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) wrote [tag]Bush[/tag], urging him to immediately remove Tomlinson from his position. Given what we know, it seems like the least he could do.