Glenn Kessler, Washington Post Staff Writer reports that Bush had to be protected from bad news and his propaganda machine wouldn’t be bothered with facts. In fact they had their own propagandist in charge, another Fox in the hen house just to protect Bush from embarrassment, not unlike the Stalinists or Maoists or any dictator who rules by message control.
Howard J. Krongard, the State Department's inspector general, has repeatedly thwarted investigations and censored reports that might prove politically embarrassing to the Bush administration, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform charged today in a 13-page letter.
The letter, signed by committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and released by the committee today, said the allegations were based on the testimony of seven current and former officials on Krongard's staff, including two former senior officials who allowed their names to be used, and private e-mail exchanges obtained by the committee. The letter said the allegations were not limited to a single unit or project, but concerned all three major divisions of Krongard's office -- investigations, audits and inspections.
Waxman is asking for documents on this guy and again, we see a nominally independent office being twisted by right wing ideologues who care nothing for the government they serve, they care nothing for the Constitution, and look at those who follow the law as chumps.
The letter charged that Krongard "interfered with ongoing investigations to protect the State Department and the White House from political embarrassment." It said that "your strong affinity with State Department leadership and your partisan political ties have led you to halt investigations, censor reports and refuse to cooperate with law enforcement agencies."
Waxman accused Krongard of refusing to send investigators to Iraq and Afghanistan to investigate $3 billion worth of State Department contracts; preventing his investigators from cooperating with a Justice Department probe into waste and fraud in the construction of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq; using "highly irregular" procedures to personally exonerate the embassy's prime contractor of labor abuses; interfering in the probe of a close friend of former White House adviser Karl Rove; censoring reports on embassies to prevent full disclosure to Congress; and refusing to publish critical audits of State's financial statements.
Krongard also decided which investigations to pursue and which investigations to stymie...all based on...guess what? You bet, extremism, Christianism, Corporatism, think tank ideology. This guy it turns out wasn’t ever going to win manager of the year. The entire department was at the whm of his temper tantrums and you bet-like all the incompetent idiots placed in power in this administration, he has wreaked havoc at an agency that was designed to help Americans be governed properly.
TPM Muckraker brings this about Krongard: he was
"Using 'highly irregular' procedures to personally exonerate the [Baghdad] embassy's prime contractor of labor abuses."
Oy.
So you see there is a reason Bush doesn't know what you feel or what Americans desire. They work very hard to keep his bubble solid.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...