Sunday, February 25, 2007
Being Small, Livin' Large
This story is hysterically, but painfully, funny.0 comments
Smithsonian Head's Expenses 'Lavish,' Audit Says
To say the least.
I don't know what's most shocking through the course of the entire story. There are SO many wacky elements to this thing.
We are reminded, yet once again my fair ladies and gentlemen, that in Republican-held Washington, DC, we citizens are merely a 300 million+ person ATM machine for those who are well connected. YIIIPPPPEEEEEEEE! FREE CASH, DINNERS, JETS, TRIPS, JEWELRY, AND EVEN MOORRE CASH FOR ALL MY FRIENDS!!! THANK YOU, PEONS OF AMERICA! YOU'RE ALL SOOO KIND!!
OK. I'm better now. My, where to begin?
Do we look at our hero, Lawrence Small, Director of the Smithsonian Institute, for his extravagent lifestyle, for which he has spent over six years sending you and me the (VERY LARGE) bill? Do we look at how he negotiated a series of financial conditions when he took the job in 2000, only to flagrantly blow off each of those conditions, along with all other federal expense reporting regulations, as if certainly he were more important than those paltry triffles? Do we look to his staff who rode the Small gravy train for years without blowing the whistle, and then—unethically, but creatively—pitched in to do the paperwork for his investigation by auditors, so as to make him (not to mention, themselves) look MUCH better on paper?
Does it matter that Small was formerly president and COO at Fannie Mae, which has been dogged by corruption?
Do we look at Small's following of the George W. Bush/Neo-Con-mandated ideological corruption of the fully non-partisan inner workings of the American government? And perhaps take a look at how he stopped funding for scientific programs, and sold off major research access to America's Main Museum's archives to Showtime Networks? We can only assume he was so proud of that coup that he felt entitled to put the entire access fee directly into his pockets.
Do we look at harried acting Smithsonian Inspector General A. Sprightley Ryan and his team of auditors—American heroes, all—who MUST have gone through cases of Scotch, just trying to absorb the stunning enormity of Small's brazenness? How sore were their foreheads from slamming them on their desks at each new disclosure? And, remember, this is the ACTING Inspector General. He's the SUB! Where are their Medals of Freedom? And how, exactly, did former Smithsonian Inspector General Debra S. Ritt miss all this for so very long, hmmmm? Wouldn't Rep. Henry Waxman love to chat with her sometime? I'm sure she must have some fascinating stories.
Need we start making book on what poor, courageous Mr. Ryan's chances are, at this point, for confirmation to the fulltime gig...? Nah, didn't think so.
We should really, also, take a look at the 17-person Smithsonian Board of Regents, and their 4-member Audit and Review Committee—in place to oversee exactly this type of scenario. Well, yeah, they oversaw it, all right. And they loved it!
Three of the four people on this supposed Audit and Review Committee—the type of group which, if this were a corporate entity, would have been bound heavily by strident SEC regulations—included the co-founder of worldwide electric power comglomerate AES Corporation, who also is a former co-worker and longtime friend of Small's (and, BTW, has his wife also been installed as the president of the National Gallery of Art, which is also under the Smithsonian?); a "Washington real estate developer and philanthropist"; and the CEO of Bill Gates' shiny new foundation.
Obviously, the kinda folks who have their ears finely tuned to the voice of the common American. Not only were they not offended by Small's lavish taxpayer-paid lifestyle, they defend it!
"I think that any of that is far outweighed by his performance as secretary in the past seven years," [Roger Sant, chairman of both the Audit and Review Committee and the executive committee] said. "On any measure I can think of, his results have been outstanding."
***
Sant defended the expense but said Small's handling of [a $14,509 round-trip Lear Jet charter flight to San Antonio in May 2001] "was a little less rigorous than it should have been."
Oh.
In American, that's, "Hey Larry! I got your back, man! You go, bro'!"
Another sticking point: the full roster of 17 for the Regents Board, by charter, includes the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Vice President of the United States, 3 Senators and 3 Representatives, along with a gaggle of rich folk.
We can safely assume Dick Cheney believes Small was correctly keeping taxpayer cash safe, so Iranian terrorists couldn't get at it; Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. was asked about Small, and the man who recently whined about Justices being underpaid said, "No comment."
"No comment."!!?? Yikes!! Do you really want this man sitting in judgement of ethics cases? Does there need to be another investigation here? Is Roberts seeing this as a learning exercise? Cheeesh!
The rest of the Regents gaggle can be assumed to be OK with all this since they've raised Small's base pay from $300,000+ to over $600,000 in six years. And that's before and apart from his becoming thoroughly expense account-challenged. So the millions in misspent American cash must not bother them all that much.
My favorite part though, is seeing Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), now in politically threatened waters, being shocked—SHOCKED, I SAY!!!—at finding out about the auditors' finding.
NOW? Now, they become the party of SMALL GOVERNMENT??
This is all hilariousness!
It just hurts so much when I laugh.
posted by Gotham 2:18 PM
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