Today Bob Beauprez posted an article at Townhall.com about the LightSquared scandal. Before I go into the details, I would like to comment that cronyism was easier in Chicago–it wasn’t looked at as closely as it can be in Washington, and if it was discovered, everyone knew how to sweep it under the table without too much effort. Washington sometimes looks at such things a little more carefully.
The question about LightSquared is whether or not the Obama administration interfered with the testimony of witnesses appearing before Congressional committees. There were a number of witnesses from different agencies, but there were some striking coincidences. The article reports:
Further, entire portions of the supposedly independent opinion submitted to a Congressional Oversight Committee regarding LightSquared from four separate government agencies contained “identical language in their written testimony” – a truly remarkable coincidence.
That’s just laziness on the part of the people involved in skewing the testimony. Couldn’t they at least have been original?
The article further reports:
On September 20, 2011 separate letters were sent to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) requesting documents related to the Administration’s involvement with LightSquared. The letters were signed by Science and Technology Committee Chairman Ralph Hall (TX), James Sensenbrenner (WI), Rep. Broun and four other committee members. The letters document the apparent attempts to “Tamper with Testimony” and “Muzzling Officials” for possible political objectives. “Sugarcoating testimony over critical matters that include the lives of Americans is irresponsible, and inevitably raises questions about the Administration’s priorities,” wrote the lawmakers.
The letters express frustration that earlier requests by the Committee for LightSquared related documents from DHS, NOAA, NIST, and the Commerce Department have been ignored. The lawmakers also cited the stonewalling by the FCC of Senator Charles Grassley’s request for LightSquared documents made last April, and the refusal of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to testify at a Senate hearing.
The Chicago-way has come to Washington. Let’s evict it in 2012.
