The American Spectator

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Sin Is

By Quin Hillyer on 6.18.09 @ 10:47AM

TER!!!

Yes, put those three parts of the word together and it spells "sinister." And that's what this Obama administration has become. Apparently there is not one, but instead there are three, IGs being hounded by this corrupt White House. (Hat tip to Dan Riehl and Moe Lane.) This comes on top of a witness who is contradicting the White House claims about AmeriCorps IG Gerald Walpin (both links from us at the Washington Times). Re Walpin, it helps to read his two reports, which are both very very well done indeed, both of which blow the whistle on cronies of the president either for borderline fraud or for bad mismanagement. Michelle Malkin, to her credit, has been all over this. So has Byron York, who adds another big piece to the story today, showing how blatantly evasive the White House is being. I got some pushback last night on deep background -- and, to be honest, it does seem to me that on one level this anti-Walpin thing came from the Corporation for National and Community Service's board, based largely on a May 20 meeting where Walpin seemed confused. But the White House knows the rules on IGs, and absolutely nothing that my pushback source gave me came even close to adding up to adequate grounds to summarily dismiss in IG. The White House seems, to me, to have tried to take advantage of uncomfortable relations between a part-time board and a fulltime IG -- gee, as if THAT is an unexpected situation, an IG bothering a board! That's what IG's DO, fergoshsakes. The fact remains that this IG issued TWO very SOLID reports that embarrassed Whtie House cronies, at an agency that already has some scary overtones because of the president's expressed desire for a domestic corps as big and strong as the US military, an agency with close ties to ACORN and of deep interest to the First Lady. This is sinister. The Prowler, to his credit, has more on this. John Fund rightly tries to light a fire under Joe Lieberman to exhibit his deservedly praised conscience and do a full investigation.

This is important stuff. And while my deep background pushback last night impressed me as sincere and well-motivated, it was far, far, far less than impressive in terms of providing anywhere near enough grounds to treat Mr. Walpin this way.

Everybody who cares about integrity in government should keep pounding on this issue -- HARD.