The PBS-FEMA Connection

Russ Baker
September 12, 2006

Investigative reporter and essayist Russ Baker is a longtime contributor to TomPaine.com. He is also the founder of the Real News Project , a new not-for-profit investigative journalism outlet. He can be reached at russ@russbaker.com.

Are you staying abreast of developments on the cuckoo crony circuit?

The latest involves our good friend Ken Tomlinson, brought into the federal government to rid public broadcasting of bias in favor of the downtrodden, the poor and the voiceless.

Ken apparently was an excellent choice. We now learn of a new inquiry into Ken’s baronial lifestyle at the public trough. Investigators say that while heading the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the outfit that oversees U.S. foreign broadcasting, including the Voice of America, Tomlinson ran a ''horse racing operation.'' He seems to have been using his office to oversee a stable of horses he named after Afghan leaders who fought the Taliban and the Russians—yet another example of someone who believes that heroism may be appropriated to confer honor on one’s own dubious doings.