Air America Scandal Sunday Highlights

Big Questions From Arizona

Why Not NY? Plus: Best Overlooked Scandal Posts


Some of the best questions yet on Air America's scandal, where $875,000 in taxpayer-funded community center grants instead went to the liberal radio network, appear in today's paper.

To which New York publication might the Radio Equalizer be referring?

Actually, none of them: it's all in today's Arizona Republic, 3000 miles away from the crime scene.

In a blunt, knock-'em-dead op-ed column by Doug MacEachern, we see what was once a given in New York City journalism, tough talk:


Like everyone else who has paid attention - this excluded the New York Times for the first 16 days after the story broke - the people who work for New York's attorney general understand the scandal that flushed hundreds of poor Bronx kids out of summer camp and back to their tenement stoops by its proper name: the Air America Radio Network Scandal.

That is because the Air America Radio Network is a corporation, and this is a corporate scandal. It is one complete with the usual cast of overpaid, self-interested, millionaire wheeler-dealers whose primary objective in business is to wall themselves off from personal responsibility for their actions.

Rather like Enron executives. Only, really, that's not quite fair.

Ken Lay and friends never tried to portray themselves as anything other than rapacious moneygrubbers. They were honest thieves. It would have been a lot worse if they pretended to be earnest defenders of the "little guy," like the unctuous hypocrites at Air America.

More:

The transfers - you'll note we assiduously are avoiding calling them "loans" - appear to have been arranged by Evan Cohen, who at the time was propitiously (for him and Air America) the development director for Gloria Wise and a founding director of the fledgling liberal talk-show network.

Cohen no longer holds either position. No one even seems to know where to find him. For truth-seekers (which until Friday excluded the completely uninterested New York Times), that's discouraging.

For Air America and its avid supporters, though, it constitutes superb cover.

It was Cohen! We couldn't stop him! He was crazy!

Either Cohen or the 80-year-olds running the Boys and Girls Club, who Air America snidely suggests are incompetent.

Air America put up a statement on its Web site referring to "the allegations of mismanagement and corruption" at Gloria Wise. Like the financial mess has nothing to do with its beneficiaries.

Left unsaid in the Air America version of reality, though, is that with the exception of Cohen and one other principal, the current owners of Air America are largely the same people who owned the network when Cohen was leading its fund-raising charge.

Oh, they've changed the company name. They've rearranged a few deck chairs. But the legal distinctions they have erected are in place precisely to protect them from the responsibility to pay off the debts, including the Gloria Wise "loans," incurred while Cohen was working side by side with them.

More:

After some days of dissembling about who owed what, Piquant issued a statement that it wanted to start paying back the money but that the Department of Investigation hadn't issued instructions about how the payback should occur. This was news to the investigators.

"DOI has done nothing and given no instruction preventing payment of money owed to Gloria Wise," a DOI spokesperson said on Aug. 4.

On Aug. 6, the Post reported that the network's owners made their first repayment - a year and a half, mind you, after the "loans" were made - by placing $50,000 into an escrow account controlled by an Air America lawyer.

City investigators said they had recommended to Air America that the entire amount, $875,000, be placed in an escrow account no one could touch without DOI approval.

"Air America has not followed that recommendation," a spokesperson said.


Hey, next time there's a New York City scandal involving untouchable liberal figures, maybe we'll first ring Phoenix for help.

In other updates:

Yesterday, a midwest newspaper editor wrote the Radio Equalizer:

I don't know where you got the AP story about Air America; I wish you had linked to it. I just got done 2 1/2 hours ago putting a decent-sized Midwestern daily to bed for Saturday, and I saw no such story. Alas.

All I can attest is such a story appeared on no AP budgets and didn't show up on the Nation, Washington and International wires that I monitored. Had I seen it, it would have gotten top play on our Nation/World page. Oh well.


Yes, it appears David Caruso's AP story was confined to regional wires. Somehow, a national radio network's scandal is considered of interest only to New York readers.


--- Michelle Malkin adds a Rocky Mountain News editorial that I missed.


Overlooked posts of the week:


--- From the right, Red State Rant captured an Alzheimer's ad on Air America's site earlier in the week and ran it on his site.

Since Air America's financial diversion from Gloria Wise resulted in the shutdown of programs for the elderly, including Alzheimer's patients, Lance thought the ad was especially ironic.

After his post appeared, the organization behind the ad complained and he pulled the post, out of respect for the nonprofit.

I asked Lance to bring it back, however, because it's important for readers to see how especially shameless Air America Radio has been throughout this whole ordeal.

Go to Red State Rant to view it.


On the left, the Northwest Progressive Institute had me laughing with this delight: "Why Brian Maloney Won't Shut Up". Here's a taste:


Brian Maloney is profiting from all the attention conservatives are giving him for attacking Air America Radio. Money, attention, power.

That's why Brian Maloney won't shut up. He's enjoying and profiting from this. Brian has no interest in truth, justice, or fairness...even if he and others claim they do, they don't. They want to see Air America shut down. It's a threat to them. They hate the fact that it even exists.

The Republican Noise Machine is filled with liars and people who blow stories out of proportion. Just read David Brock's books and you'll get an idea of what we're talking about.

We'll have more to say after we get a clearer understanding from Piquant. We have faith in Piquant and Air America and believe their intentions to make up for what Evan and Charles did are genuine, even if they don't have to.

Brian can keep blathering on, but he is not going to succeed in shutting down the Air America Radio network.


Funny they should mention Brock's book, I saw a stack of them yesterday at the Ocean State Job Lot for $2.99.

Watch for a fresh update later.

AAR/ Franken by Darleen Click, City Kid$ by George Adair, Rat in The City by Pete at IHillary. Thanks for your Amazon orders, they're helping with expenses for my upcoming site upgrade project. Order a book, tick off David Brock's friends!