The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : This Makes Travelgate Look Tame

Text Size

The Spectacle Blog

This Makes Travelgate Look Tame

By Quin Hillyer on 6.16.09 @ 2:01PM

This business of President Obama firing AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin should be a huge controversy. See here and here and here and here. And here. And we at the Washington Times will have a lot more on this; actually, we already have lots more, but will be printing it in coming days.

Here's the thing: There is no reason, none whatsoever, for CNN and MSNBC, along with CBS and The NY Times, not to be putting this on the front page. An independent inspector general embarrassed some close allies and/or fundraisers of the president, so the president fired him without stating a cause. This is, on its face, a scandal. It is worse than Travelgate because it involves an official protecting the public fisc against waste and corruption. It is worse than the US Attorney "scandal" under Bush because, unlike US Attorneys, IGs are NOT political appointees who can be fired at will -- and because the quid pro quo, or rather dismissal pro quo, here is far more direct than it (allegedly) was with regard to the dismissed USAs.

At the very least, the intellectually honest (usually) left-leaning editorialists at the Washington Post should be yelling (in print) about this abuse of power by Obama. WHERE ARE THE WATCHDOGS of the establishment media? Oh, that's right: They are no longer watchdogs but lapdogs, and particularly slobbering ones at that, waiting for Obama's order for them to fetch his slippers while they hope to be thrown a bone for their slavish devotion to him.....

View all comments (27) | Leave a comment

ncatty| 6.16.09 @ 2:36PM

Freedom of the press is wasted on the establishment media. If one of them would break from the pack and investigate this matter, then ratings would rise and pulitzers would flow. Oh yeah, and the public would be served.

Pauley| 6.16.09 @ 2:38PM

This is blatant disregard for the law, and should be a huge scandal. Does this mean that Obama is now above the law? Scary stuff, indeed.

Alternative media have to keep hitting this story hard!

Old Texican| 6.16.09 @ 2:56PM

Gosh, I hate to be redundant...but Rush nailed it several weeks ago:

"State Run Media"

PRAVDA ...is here ladies and gentlemen.

(uh for you young folks that means "truth" in Russian....and never was the truth, but was the Soviet news organ.)

Ran| 6.16.09 @ 3:34PM

Texican... Please don't besmirch Pravda with such comparisons. Any bets they'll follow this better than US media? ;-)

Dee| 6.16.09 @ 3:43PM

Now that ABC will actually be anchoring out of the WH, we do indeed have lap dogs for The One. American Pravda. The news will be however Obama wants to spin it, and whatever he wants us to know. This is unconscionable.

Marc Jeric| 6.16.09 @ 3:45PM

It was in 1968 that I first started calling the New York Times "The NY Pravda"; The Washington Post "The Washington Izviestiya"; and The Los Angeles Times "The LA Borba". I am happy to see that the rest of the country is catching up, finally.

cindy graham| 6.16.09 @ 3:53PM

How stupid do they think we are? I don't know who's worse-the administration or the media. It's time for another "tea party".

Jim Norvell| 6.16.09 @ 5:28PM

Cindy, they think we are plenty stupid. You will notice that the Won is getting away with it.

Pete| 6.16.09 @ 5:38PM

It won't matter how many people come to their senses if these mobsters can funnel enough money to "community organizer" groups like ACORN, allow felons and illegal immigrants to vote, take control of the census and redistrict, etc.... Tell a friend. Anyone who relies on the mainstream media for their information will never get the true picture of the Messiah grinning with his middle finger in the air at them.

Ed| 6.16.09 @ 11:49PM

Seriously?!? None of this makes any sense if you look at it objectively. First: given Obama's proclivity for dumping political allies once they become an embarassment, I'm not buying the insinuation that the President was willing to risk a scandal over the great and powerful Mayor of Sacramento. Second, it appears that Mr. Walpin had a penchant for pissing-off Republican AND Democratic Appointees to the Board and a Republican appointed interim USA. That undercuts the partisanship argument. Lastly, McCaskill, an early (and staunch) Obama ally, put out a statement saying that she is concerned that the administration didn't follow the law. If covering-up something nefarious was of grave concern to the administration, they could have asked the Senator to keep quiet. I'm going to go with the WSJ and call "small beer" on this one.

Pete| 6.17.09 @ 12:01AM

Except that the WSJ said the opposite, Ed. Specifically, they said "If this seems like small beer, keep in mind that Mr. Obama promised to carefully watch how every stimulus dollar is spent. In this case, the evidence suggests that his White House fired a public official who refused to roll over to protect a Presidential crony."

It is a good piece...sad they are the only major outlet to mention this scandal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124511811033017539.html

ed| 6.17.09 @ 12:19AM

My larger point is that the evidence suggests, at most, that the White House was hamfisted and sloppy. Any suggestion that this will evolve into a major scandal is wishful thinking.

Pauley| 6.17.09 @ 4:13AM

Ed, corruption has nothing to do with wishful thinking or sloppy actions on the part of Obama.

If Obama broke the law he should be exposed, right? Or are you so in the tank for him that you believe he's above the law?

Only a sneaky libtroll would say that--right, Ed?

Rocco| 6.17.09 @ 7:33AM

Cindy & Jim, of course they think we're stupid - collectively. We (the electorate) put them into office despite all the warnings and have collectively proven our stupidity. So, they will do what they want, and the ABC-Obama press office will paint it in the best possible light, and the gullible, moronic voter will swallow it hook, line and sinker. Depressing.

Dean| 6.17.09 @ 8:26AM

Nobody should be surprised at all by this. This is plain, simple Chicago politics 101. President Obama learned at the feet of Mayor Daley. These kinds of scandals are a daily (re: Daley) occurence here. And, since they happen so often they are generally ignored by the media and the public. I'm sure the President assumed (and apparently correctly) it would be ignored in Washington as well.

Welcome to seeing the old Chicago adage playing itself out in Washington DC: "Keep your friends on the public payroll and fire your enemies."

pammie| 6.17.09 @ 8:42AM

"57 States Obama" Fires someone for being confused.

Benjamin Wright| 6.17.09 @ 10:26AM

E-mail records enable congressional investigators like Grassley and Issa to dig deeper and quicker into this controversy than they could have in Travelgate. --Ben http://legal-beagle.typepad.com/wrights_legal_beagle/2009/01/computer-records-in-academic-researchgrant-internal-investigations.html

Oldefarte| 6.17.09 @ 11:11AM

The MSM is too busy LEWINSKYING the Obama administration to honestly [and seriously] report to the American people on this [or any othe significant] issue!!!!

Repubtallygirl| 6.17.09 @ 12:09PM

Oldefarte: VERY Funny!

Repubtallygirl| 6.17.09 @ 12:09PM

Oldefarte: VERY Funny!

dl13| 6.17.09 @ 12:13PM

The Shills for Obama have NOT spoken.....

VISTA| 6.17.09 @ 1:13PM

I have been trying to get someone to notice the rampant waste in the Chicago AmeriCorps office for several months. No one has listened. AmeriCorps programs provide government subsidies (or "welfare") to ineffective, inefficient, substandard pet projects of the local AmeriCorps officials. There is NO accountability.

Pete| 6.17.09 @ 3:37PM

The entire "stimulus" package is merely payoffs for votes received. Of course there is not transparency or accountability - this is by design. They are stealing from us all and giving to their political buddies.

katablog.com| 6.17.09 @ 6:58PM

Lastly, McCaskill, an early (and staunch) Obama ally, put out a statement saying that she is concerned that the administration didn't follow the law. McCaskill has decided that now that O says Walpin is senile, everything is okay.

Free America| 6.17.09 @ 8:47PM

I read a lot of blogs - left wing, right wing, everything in between. There has been no mention of this at any of the left wing blogs like Huffington Post, DemocraticUnderground and others. It amazes me how they can just blindly look the other way on this issue.

MoonbatBane| 6.17.09 @ 9:41PM

Free America said, "It amazes me how they can just blindly look the other way on this issue."

It doesn't amaze me at all. They are simply going through the necessary mental gyrations to trivialize this (and many other) matters in order to preserve their "obama-messiah" worldview. Ed above is a good example. He simply reinterprets the facts to trivialize them so that he doesn't have to go through the painful processes of admitting he was wrong about zero and facing a scary reality that doesn't align with his current "understanding." He probably has no idea that he's even doing that, either. Also, pointing out factual errors is almost useless. Again, see above where Pete pointed out how Ed was absolutely wrong about the WSJ's position. Ed disappeared, which is just more of the same: ignoring facts that don't align with the "obama-messiah" worldview.

It is called cognitive dissonance, and it is rampant on the left. Typically a trauma (real or mental) is required to bring cognitively dissonant people back to reality, and even that's sometimes not enough. Ever hear the saying that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged? They you go, but not all mugged liberals become conservatives.

That's what we're up against, people...

SC Mike| 6.17.09 @ 10:24PM

Like CETA of thirty years ago, AmeriCorps has been a scandal waiting to happen. Congress funds a program with strict rules to do good things, making funds available to the locals to help deserving folks achieve greatness.

At first applications are closely monitored, funds are carefully disbursed, procedures are put in place to account for the funds, assuring that they’re spend IAW the public law and organization’s application, and all are happy. Then the nudging and corruptions starts.

Over time, folks start nudging, as is probably the case with the CUNY program, where “after acceptance into the Fellows Program, participants are offered the opportunity to join AmeriCorps and thereby receive a taxpayer-funded education award of $4,725 for each of the two years they teach – for doing nothing in addition to what they had already agreed to do when they enrolled in the Fellows Program.” So the “Fellows” collected a $9,450 stipend to assist with living expenses while in the Fellows Program and not doing a durn thang that the AmeriCorps law said that they were supposed. There’s big money in this nudging -- $44M -- that should clearly be paid back. This is probably the real reason Walpin was fired.

Over time too politicians, primarily from that party that makes the greatest use of patronage and similar diversions of other people’s money to their own use, find that that this free money is accessible, and that was surely the case with St. Hope. Poor bookkeeping allowed the President’s supporter to do what he wanted with the funds to supplement his chaotic operation, the primary purpose of which was to give him a platform to launch his mayoral candidacy. The books are probably in such a mess that a criminal referral is not possible, but the very agreement, hollow though it may be, to return $400K is remarkable.

There are probably enough problems with AmeriCorps to keep ten IGs and five US Attorneys busy for a decade. Heck, make all recipients comply with Sarbanes-Oxley and watch the fur fly.

Congress got so upset with the CETA sieve that they cancelled it, a fate AmeriCorps would face in a just society. But we’re talking Chicago rules, so don’t hold your breath.