To paraphrase Andy Warhol: In the future, everyone can be a political hack for fifteen months.
According to a report from Kenneth A. Konz, the inspector general of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, former CPB chairman Kenneth Tomlinson repeatedly broke federal law during his tenure:
According to the report, Tomlinson consulted with Bush administration officials — including Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove — about his efforts, even though the former chairman told The Times in May that he had had “absolutely no contact from anyone at the White House saying we need to do this or that with public broadcasting.”
However, Konz discovered that in late 2003 and again this year, Tomlinson exchanged e-mails with White House officials about possible candidates to serve as the corporation’s president. Some of the notes discussed Tomlinson’s desire to hire Patricia Harrison, a former Republican Party co-chairwoman, whom the board appointed to the post in June.
“While cryptic in nature, their timing and subject matter give the appearance that the former chairman was strongly motivated by political considerations in filling the president/CEO position,” Konz wrote.
The corporation, a private nonprofit organization that distributes federal funding to local TV and radio stations, is supposed to act as a buffer between Congress and broadcasters.
In an interview, the inspector general said Tomlinson exchanged e-mails with “two or three” White House officials, including Rove. He declined to name the other officials or provide copies of the e-mails, which were given to the full board in a separate report.
Konz concluded that Tomlinson’s efforts to hire Harrison violated provisions of the Federal Broadcasting Act, which prohibits the use of “political tests” in employment.
He also determined that the former chairman broke federal law barring interference in programming when he promoted the development of “The Journal Editorial Report,” a public affairs program on the Public Broadcasting Service featuring the conservative editorial page board of the Wall Street Journal. The report said Tomlinson urged PBS to air the program even as he offered editorial page editor Paul Gigot advice about the program’s format.
The report said Tomlinson was so zealous in what he termed his pursuit of political balance that he instructed corporation staff to threaten to withhold federal funds from PBS to achieve it — an action that would have required congressional approval.
The machine politics of the Bush administration run so deep that Karl Rove is consulting on CPB appointments! Unbelievable.