You couldn't make
this up if you were a staff-writer for the Daily Show:
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 -- 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. Tomlinson, had repeatedly used government employees to perform personal errands and that he billed the government for more days of work than the rules permit.
It gets worse, below the fold.
OK, you are probably saying to yourself (heh) who could have known that this guy had no business holding a position of public trust.
Mr. Tomlinson, a Republican with close ties to the White House, was ousted last year from another post, at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, after another inquiry found evidence that he had violated rules meant to insulate public television and radio from political influence.
His renomination to a new term as chairman of the State Department office that oversees foreign broadcasts, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, is pending before the Senate.
Mr. Tomlinson's position at the broadcasting board makes him one of the administration's top officials overseeing public diplomacy and puts him in charge of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.
Damn. He thought it was called Vice of America. That's why he was interested in horse racing.
But how did this clown get the job anyway?
Mr. Tomlinson, 62, is a former editor of Reader's Digest who has close ties to Karl Rove
Well, now that the fit hit the shan, this guy is history, right?
A spokeswoman for the White House, Emily Lawrimore, said President Bush continued to support Mr. Tomlinson's renomination.
The Republican Culture of Corruption and Incompetence.
