IG-Gate: The Sacramento Sex Scandal Obama and MSM Want You to Ignore

Yeah, this kind of stuff could get embarrassing:

About 11:00 p.m., Mr. Johnson arrived at St. Hope and instructed [her] to gather her things and come with him. Mr. Johnson drove to [her] apartment, which is managed by St. Hope Development and houses its AmeriCorps members, purportedly so that they could review the students' grades. While in [her] apartment, in which another AmeriCorps member had a separate bedroom, Mr. Johnson laid down on [her] bed. [The woman] sat on the edge of the bed to show him the grades, at which time Mr. Johnson "layed [sic] down behind me, cupping his body around mine like the letter C. After about 2-3 minutes or so, I felt his hand on my left side where my hip bone is."

That's from WorldNetDaily, digging up more gold from the motherlode Grassley-Issa report (PDF) on the firing of AmeriCorps IG Gerald Walpin. The Democratic mayor of Sacramento seemed to think he could use the federally-funded St. HOPE program the way Eliot Spitzer used the Emperor's Club VIP call-girl agency.

Kevin Johnson's fiancee -- who just happens to be the boss of D.C. public schools -- tried to sweet-talk Walpin out of blowing the whistle on her sweetie and, when Walpin wouldn't play ball for Obama's buddies, the White House fired Walpin and lied about it. And then there are those magic words: "Hush money."

All of which adds up to one heckuva sex scandal, but you're not seeing much about this in the MSM, are you? The New York Times buried the story inside Saturday's paper with the bland headline, "G.O.P. Report Connects Official to Fiancé’s Case."

If Kevin Johnson and Michelle Rhee weren't Democrats, the New York Times would be running 72-point headlines on Page One: REPUBLICANS ROCKED BY TEEN SEX 'HUSH MONEY' CHARGES!

But like Professor Glenn Reynolds says, "When the press can ignore a sex scandal, you know it's covering for politicians, not covering them."

More at Memeorandum and the IG-Gate blog.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! What offends me about this is that the newspaper business is in meltdown mode and, hey, sex sells, right? This story is a headline-writer's dream:

SACRAMENTO SEX SCANDAL!
Hizzoner's Hush-Money Teen Tango
Watchdog Whistle-Blower Claims
White House Arranged Cover-Up

Watever happened to selling newspapers, people? Dibs on the "Michelle Rhee sex video" Google-bomb, BTW. Now, somebody needs to hit my tip jar. My wife wants to go holiday shopping Friday.

That sound you just heard . . .

. . . was my head exploding:

On June 27, 2008, Michelle Rhee, head of the Washington, D.C., school system, paid a visit to Gerald Walpin, who was inspector general of the government volunteer organization AmeriCorps. . . .
Rhee, who later became engaged to marry Johnson, had been on St. Hope’s board of directors before taking over as chief of the District of Columbia system. Her apparent goal, as she visited Walpin, was to vouch for Johnson.
"The basic point of her meeting with me was to tell me what a great guy he was," Walpin recalls, "and what wonderful work he has done, and that maybe he had made mistakes administratively, but that she thought I should give as much consideration as possible to his good work in deciding what to do."

OK, my head exploded not merely because Byron York scooped me again -- he's a good reporter -- but because the sex-scandal angle in the IG-Gate story is being ignored by the MSM.

Here you've got Johnson, accused of sexual misconduct by three different St. HOPE students, and one of the St. HOPE board members -- who also happens to be Johnson's fiancee -- is trying to get the Inspector General to drop his investigation, in the middle of Johnson's 2008 campaign for mayor. The accused sexual predador is a close friend of the president, and Little Miss Predator-Enabler is the head of D.C. public schools?

On what planet is this not front-page news?

Kevin Johnson: Future neocon?

The Obama-emulating, AmeriCorps-defrauding Mayor of Sacramento got mugged by reality in Frisco -- and Red State blog-fu sensei Moe Lane has the video.

IG-Gate Update:Walpin wonders about Matsui's role

Guess who reads The American Spectator?

In a telephone interview today, Walpin said he noticed last week's report that Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) had contacted White House officials in March, publicly vowing that sanctions against Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson didn't prevent the city from getting its share of bailout cash.
Questions about what role Matsui may have played in Walpin's dismissal are being asked on Capitol Hill, and the ex-IG himself is curious about the Sacramento congresswoman's intervention, which drew attention after it was highlighted by California blogger Eric Hogue.
On the larger question -- whether political pressure over his investigation of Mayor Johnson's St. HOPE Academy was a factor in the June 10 quit-or-be-fired ultimatum from the White House -- Walpin is certain.
"I have no doubt about that," Walpin said. . . .

Read the whole thing, and expect updates.

UPDATE 5 p.m.: Eric Hogue's all over the involvement of Matsui in IG Gate, with audio and lots, lots more.

MATSUI-GATE? California Democrat'sIntervention in AmeriCorps CaseRaises Questions on Capitol Hill

HUGE hat-tip to California blogger Eric Hogue for spotting a March interview with a Sacramento radio station in which Rep. Doris Matsui -- the Democrat who represents California's capitol city in Congress -- vowed to get stimulus cash By Any Means Necessary:

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson has asked U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui to help keep the flow of federal funds coming into the city.Johnson is not allowed to receive federal funds because of allegations his St. Hope-Hood Corps Foundation misused federal money.
Matsui, D-District 5, who appeared on the KCRA 3 Morning News on Saturday morning, said she believes Sacramento will get money, but she can't guarantee it."
Under any scenario, we are going to get the money. We are going to get the money," she said. "I understand that process has to unfold. The mayor is dealing with that. We are dealing with the situation at the federal level. The city is taking the right steps. They have to disclose this, and we are moving forward."
Matsui added that she has been in contact with White House officials and other members of the federal government.

More IG-Gate news where that came from. Trust me when I say that Hogue's blog post made a big difference. Important people are paying attention and, to borrow the words of Ricky Ricardo -- that hero of investigative journalists everywhere -- I expect that Ms. Matsui has got some 'splainin' to do.

UPDATE 1:35 p.m.: Sigh. If a blogger breaks news and nobody links it, is it really news?

Tuesday night at Townhall.com, Eric Hogue asked, "Where is the media?" I've got a better question than that: "Where are Republicans?"

For months, I've complained about the cluelessness of Republican media operatives, and this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. For some reason (and I say it's because almost nobody in the GOP has ever worked in an actual newsroom) these people seem incapable of judging "news value."

There is an observable tendency among GOP media operatives toward a talking-points approach to news: "I'll push the stories that the RNC, etc., want me to push." And then there is the star-system approach to news: "If it's on Drudge or Limbaugh or Fox News, then it must be important -- and to hell with everything else." But why bother repeating what I've already said so often before? Nobody's paying attention.

So here is Eric Hogue, pointing to definite indications of political influence in the firing of Gerald Walpin, and . . . nothing. That IG-Gate Update has been online at the American Spectator since 10:34 a.m., and except for Bob Belvedere, nobody is in the conservative blogosphere has even noticed.

Next time I run into some overpaid "Web 2.0" guru who tries to lecture me about why the GOP sucks at New Media, I'll turn around and walk away. This is the only alternative to punching his fucking lights out.