Posted on 04/13/2010 11:23:56 AM PDT by bs9021
Muzzling the Watchdog
Malcolm A. Kline, April 13, 2010
The opposition party in Congress is concerned with the top choice of the majority party to head the fairly independent congressional research arm, the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Their qualms are not unfounded.
“President Obama has a choice to make,” Rep. Darrell Issa of California, a GAO selection panel member and the senior Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee stated. “He can either follow the unfortunate and partisan path put forward by congressional Democrats and nominate an ideologue like Linda Bilmes or he can uphold GAO’s appropriate role as a nonpartisan and neutral broker.”
“At the end of the day, the politicization of the GAO will be met with hostility and will not withstand Senate confirmation.”
“My response is the issues I worked on, which included issues related to the federal debt and deficit and human resource situation in government and the cost of the Iraq war and the pension situation at the state and local level, are really issues that affect everyone,” the lady herself told The Washington Times. “I really don’t think they are partisan issues.”
“I don’t see this as a partisan job.” Currently a Harvard professor, Dr. Bilmes served in the Clinton Administration.
“I certainly would not be partisan,” she told the Times. “I think I have hundreds and hundreds of students who are Republicans, Democrats and independents who would, and do, vouch for my nonpartisanship.”
Actually, no student reviews of Dr. Bilmes appear on ratemyprofessors.com. Nevertheless, Accuracy in Academia has both critiqued a book she co-authored and covered her.
Of the former, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraqi Conflict, Rachel Paulk noted that “The authors’ interpretations of the macroeconomic effects of the war vary in dubiousness by topic.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at academia.org ...
Republicans need to listen to We The People, because They Are Returnable to the States they claim they represent.
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