No Good Deed Ever Stops Being Punished

Remember Kenneth Tomlinson? The conservative Republican who, as Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, attempted to actually compel PBS to abide by itse government charter and run politically objective and balanced programming, and was tarred and feathered by a congressional Democrat witchhunt for his efforts?

Well, they're still at it:

The left accuses him, for example, of hiring a friend for an important position. Imagine that. A scandal, they say. But to most people, I suspect, it is no shocking surprise that someone is more likely to hire a friend than an enemy. He also is accused of using that friend as an unauthorized personal driver. Asked about this under oath, the man said: "I have never driven Mr. Tomlinson. But he has driven for me." Perhaps they witnessed these two friends in the same car - but can't these folks even figure out which person in the front seat is the driver? They also imply his friend was unqualified and report he was paid close to $250,000. Truth is: That's what the man was paid over two years and eight months. Just under $93,750 a year is not unusual compensation in Washington; it happens to be what the man earned after more than thirty distinguished years in the field of international broadcasting
with the Voice of America.

Mr. Tomlinson's enemies feign alarm that he put in and billed for more hours than once was the case for the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. True - because times have changed. We are in a war against Islamic-fascist terrorists, a military war and a war of ideas. Mr. Tomlinson repeatedly made it clear before his Senate confirmation in 2002 that to do the job right he would have to treat it as full-time. Then he was confirmed unanimously.

The fourth time Tomlinson was confirmed unanimously, actually, after having been previously appointed to high government broadcasting-related positions by Presidents Reagan, Bush41, and Clinton. The partisan abuse he's taking now borders on Boltonesque, and doubtless springs from the insane depths of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Given that they ran him out of the CPB altogether, I can only surmise that the fact that Tomlinson still draws a federal paycheck is what has libs in their trademark lather.

And perhaps also this:

Since July 2003, when many in Congress were oblivious to the threat from Iran, thanks largely to Mr. Tomlinson's vision and leadership the U.S. has been beaming satellite television to the Iranian people featuring four hours of original news reporting every day and repeating it three times every twenty-four hours.

On Mr. Tomlinson's watch, the United States also launched the Al Hurra television network, which now broadcasts in Arabic twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and has become an important source of information for millions living in a vast area from Morocco to Iraq to Yemen. According to one unbiased survey, nearly half the households in Iraq and Syria tune in weekly, as do nearly a third of those in Lebanon and Jordan. Its audience is likelier much higher, as people in that part of the world are not keen to admit to a survey that they are turning to a U.S.-sponsored network for news and public affairs programming. Surveys also show its vast audience considers Al Hurra a highly reliable source of information.

Put another way, Mr. Tomlinson is doing for the people of the Muslim world what he tried to do for PBS viewers - provide them with fair and balanced U.S. government programming. Evidently the Dems think that's also "unacceptable and unethical" and must be punished in propaganda perpetuity.

Therefore, they've resorted to this:

What the Tomlinson haters think is the bombshell they've dropped on him is their claim he "ran a horse racing operation from his office." It sounds awful. But, of course, it is not true.

In response to demands from particularly partisan Democrats Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Representatives Howard Berman and Tom Lantos, both of California, an inspector general seized all Mr. Tomlinson's e-mails and phone and office records. Every one of them. Then investigators scrutinized all of them for nearly a year. Low and behold, it turns out that while at his office Mr. Tomlinson received an average of one e-mail a day about his horse hobby and spent an average of 2? minutes talking about his horses on the phone. This, his critics say, is a truly big scandal. They're not joking. Faking, maybe, but not joking. [emphases added]

What did the IG conclude?

[I] found not "one specific way in which his professional responsibilities and personal interests appear to have intersected."

Understand that this crap is coming from the same people who spent eight years covering up Bill Clinton's dozens of meta-scandals, to this day defend "Icebox Willie" Jefferson, said not a peep about cop-puncher Cynthia McKinney, and tolerate in their midst a drunken manslaughter perp, a one-time Ku Klux Klan kleagle, and a rogue's gallery of crooks, scoundrels, racists, and lunatics - and now, more than likely, their first honest-to-Allah jihadi. When it comes to ethics, integrity, and character, the whole baying pack of them aren't worthy of kissing Ken Tomlinson's ass.

Still, it wouldn't hurt congressional Republicans to recommend that course of action to their colleagues across the aisle. Being in the majority ought to mean that the minority party isn't allowed to pursue the "politics of personal destruction" as though it were still the bad old days of their corrupt, tyrannical rule. What could be more fair and balanced than that?