Rule 3 on IG-Gate (Plus, Notes forNewbies on Aggregation Method)

There's a Memeorandum thread this morning linking the Hot Air IG-Gate Update, which got Instalanched. and is also linked by Frugal Cafe. Note that the Memeorandum thread also includes Joe Weber's Washington Times interview with fired AmeriCorps IG Gerald Walpin:

"For a second I was thinking, 'Why do I need all of this?' I'll just resign and go back to my good legal practice in New York," Gerald Walpin told The Washington Times' "America's Morning News" radio show Tuesday.
"But I would then be part of the apparatus that is totally torpedoing the inspectors general," Mr. Walpin said. "The watchdog would not really be a watchdog. He'd just be afraid of his shadow." . . .

That's new stuff, see? It was linked together with the IG-Gate Update in a post at Right Wing News. If several different blogs aggregate that stuff together, it creates sort of a center of gravity in the 'sphere that is picked up by the Memeorandum algorithm.

And the Right Wing News post also includes today's Washington Post story about Neil Barofsky -- SIGTARP, special inspector general for the TARP bailout -- who raised hell on Capitol Hill yesterday. As of 7 a.m., that story was not included in the Memeorandum thread, but given that Sen. Chuck Grassley has been defending Barofsky's office against Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, (see Grassley's June 17 letter to Geithner in PDF) it's very much part of the same story.

Building up a Memeorandum thread, with everybody commenting on the same news stories and cross-linking, is what Rule 3 is about. Newbies should always hat-tip Memeorandum when they do this. Even if the increase in your traffic is not immediately significant, every time somebody links your blog, it boosts your Technorati ranking -- you did remember to install Technorati, right? -- and, eventually, you'll be showing up on Memeorandum's radar.

Think of it this way: When one dog in the neighborhood starts barking, they all start barking. That's why Jimmie Bise dubbed us The Million Hit Squad.

If you need more background on the IG-Gate story, try the Mother of All Updates.

UPDATE: Yet more juicy SIGTARP goodness:

Barofsky testified that taxpayers aren't being told what most TARP recipients are doing with their money or what their investments are worth and may never be told exactly how their taxpayer dollars are being used.
At a Government Oversight and Reform Committee hearing, one lawmaker compared Treasury to convicted Ponzi scheme artist Bernie Madoff, accused Treasury of trying to undermine Barofsky's independence and threatened to haul Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner before the panel if he didn’t adopt the IG's recommendations.
“For us to get past this economic situation that we find ourselves in, the public has to believe that we’re doing the right thing,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). “If we can’t show them that we are doing the right thing with their money, we’re going to have problems." (Emphasis added.)

When Democrats start talking like that, you know it spells trouble for Geithner.

UPDATE II: Text of closing statement by Chairman Towns:

Earnings at the largest banks and the bank holding companies such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are up, yet lending remains down. It is unacceptable that profits go up, while lending goes down. The taxpayers have invested very large amounts of money in these banks, but what have we gotten in return? It remains unclear.
The taxpayers deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent.
The Treasury Department needs to publish full and detailed information on the use of TARP funds and publish the value of the TARP portfolio on a monthly basis. They have that information and they should make it public.
Moreover, Treasury also requires the largest banks to file monthly reports showing the dollar value of their new lending. That should be made public also.
If Treasury doesn’t put this information up on its website, this Committee will. And if Treasury doesn’t turn over this information voluntarily, Secretary Geithner will be brought before the Committee to explain.
What we have heard today convinces me that one of the best things Congress did when it created the TARP was to also create the Special Inspector General to oversee TARP spending. I can now understand why the Treasury Department would like to rein in the SIGTARP. But we are not going to let that happen.

Heh.

UPDATE III: Just got off the phone with a source on Capitol Hill who tells me yesterday's Hot Air IG-Gate Update is a big hit with Republicans. Speaking of Republicans, here's Rep. Darrell Issa:

The Special Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) Neil Barofsky testified today at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the Treasury Department has "repeatedly failed" to implement SIGTARP recommendations that would reveal how Treasury is using taxpayer dollars. At the conclusion of the hearing, Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) asked Chairman Towns to bring Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner before the Committee to address the questions raised by SIGTARP’s report. . . .
"We heard today that full transparency, which we called for, the President asked for and this Administration promised, is being blocked by the bureaucracy which often says ‘just trust and we will deliver,’” Issa said. "Until we have full transparency, we will never be able to know how much risk Treasury is assuming on behalf of the taxpayers. This Administration promised an 'unprecedented' level of accountability and transparency. They set their own standard. Now we're going to hold them to it."

Click here for Issa's statement.
Click here for Neil Barofsky's testimony.
Click here for a copy of the SIGTARP Report.

Obama's no Daley, but . . .

Michael Barone in the Examiner:

His first political ambition was to be mayor of Chicago, the boss of all he surveyed; he has had to settle for the broader but less complete hegemony of the presidency. . . .
Chicago-style, he has kept the Republicans out of serious policy negotiations . . . Basking in the adulation of nearly the entire press corps, he whines about his coverage on Fox News. Those who stand in the way, like the Chrysler secured creditors, are told that their reputations will be destroyed; those who expose wrongdoing by political allies, like the AmeriCorps inspector general, are fired.

Speaking of Chicago, John Kass of the Chicago Tribune laughs to scorn the shocked! shocked! reaction over Obama's move against inspectors general:

The use of political muscle may be prohibited in the mythic transcendental fairyland where much of the Obama spin originates . . . But our president is from Chicago. . . . David Axelrod and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel come right from Chicago Democratic machine boss Mayor Richard Daley. They don't believe in fairies . . .
It's the Chicago Way. Now, formally, it's also the Chicago on the Potomac Way. . . .

You can read the rest, which is also discussed in today's "300 Words Or Less" editorial at NTCNews.com, and linked at Memeorandum. At this point, IG-Gate raises two basic questions:

1. Does all this suspicious smoke indicate a genuinely scandalous fire? That is to say, is there genuine crime or ethical misconduct involved, or are the inspectors generals just victims of political hardball which, while rudely thuggish in typical Chicago fashion, is not actually criminal?
2. If there is a real scandal, will the Obama-worshipping press ignore it?

After I filed my Friday report at Pajamas Media, I noticed a lot of comments along the lines of, "Oh, Obama will get away with this because the MSM is in the tank." This is a presumption -- indeed, perhaps, two or three presumptions -- too far.

Conservatives can be excused for thinking that rampant Obamaphilia in the press corps will protect The One from any possible consequences for malfeasance or error, if only because this has hitherto been the case. But . . .

Honeymoon kisses ain't news. An FBI investigation of an alleged cover-up is news. The snobs and sycophants in the White House press corps might be predisposed to ignore or dismiss this story but -- believe it or not -- there are still a handful of real old-fashioned reporters in America who get excited at the prospect of scoring an exclusive, and who don't give a damn what the political consequences are.

Not every reporter in America is part of the Washington press elite. But if some reporter at Sacramento Bee aspires to join that elite, what better way than to dig in on this Walpin/St. HOPE/Kevin Johnson/AmeriCorps story and try to turn it into an award-winning investigative series?

It doesn't matter what the political angle is. The hotshot California reporter who scores scoop after scoop on a story of national consquence can build a stack of clippings demonstrating his investigative chops, get some of his stories linked by Drudge and cited by other news organizations and, next thing you know, somebody's paying his round-trip plane fare to Washington or New York to interview for a big new job.

Upward mobility in a declining industry? Kinda cool.

There's another angle to think about, however. Beyond the Walpin/AmeriCorps story, TARP special IG Neil Barofsky has got himself in a tangle with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and notice who's paying attention to that story. The Obama aura is powerful, but it offers very limited coverage to the ungainly Geithner.

The Geithner/Barofsky feud is going to be covered by lots of New York-based financial reporters who don't give a damn about the Beltway elite. The Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, Bloomberg News -- reporters for outfits like that usually have an indifference to the attitudes of the politics crowd. Indeed, you'll occasionally find a financial reporter who thinks capitalism is OK. Just to cite one example, investigative journalist Matthew Vadum first came to D.C. as a financial reporter.

And there's still the factor of good old-fashioned competition in the press. The editors of the Washington Post aren't going to sit still and twiddle their thumbs if the Examiner, the Politico and the Washington Times start scoring a string of scoops on this story. And the same is true of the TV networks. Check out this Thursday exchange between ABC's Jake Tapper and WH press secretary Robert Gibbs:

TAPPER: Earlier this year the special inspector general for TARP Neil Barofsky tried to get documents relating to AIG. The Treasury Department rebuffed that request, and although ultimately I think they did turn over the documents, the Treasury Department sought a ruling from the Justice Department on just how independent Neil Barofsky's office is supposed to be. Please explain from the administration's perspective what exactly is going on here and why it appears as though the Treasury Department is pushing back against an independent inspector general.
GIBBS: Well, obviously, Jake, the president believes that inspectors general fulfill a unique and important role in ensuring that programs operate with efficiency. No attorney-client privilege on any of this stuff has been invoked. No documents sought have been or are being withheld. The DOJ review is not related to any particular investigation. It is sorting out legal issues relating to the creation of the office.
TAPPER: Right. But could you explain -- could you actually answer my question? I understand the talking points you've been given, but . . .

Read the rest of that, and think of how some other reporters in the White House press corps must have been high-fiving Tapper afterwards. (Honestly, not all of them are completely in the tank with Chris Matthews' leg-thrilling affection for O.)

As with the charmless Geithner, the media's love for Obama won't suffice to protect every member of his administration. Norm Eisen has no unicorns-and-rainbows mystique of Hope, and just wait until the D.C. press corps starts sniffing around the unexpected resignation of the AmTrak inspector general. (Gee, what gaffe-prone politician considers AmTrak his personal pet program?)

The fundamental problem the IG investigation presents to the Obama administration is the contradiction to its oft-declared commitment to transparency, as Jimmie Bise Jr. observes at the American Issues Project:

It could very well be that this small scandal becomes the lead domino that begins a chain reaction that could spell unmitigated disaster for the Obama administration. Regardless, the Inspector General firings and the Treasury Department's unwillingness to cooperate with IG Barofsky are another sign that when they administration claimed to be in favor of greater accountability, it was only blowing smoke.

Despite all the headlines to date, IG-Gate has yet to break through to the status of a major scandal, mostly because the potentially revolutionary developments in Iran have captivated public attention. Yet when the chaos in Iran subsides, the investigations of the IG firings will keep going and, as Jimmie says at Sundries Shack, it looks like this scandal is growing legs. More dominoes may be falling soon . . .

(Thanks to the Blogosphere's Photoshop Queen, Carol at No Sheeples Here, for the artwork.)

UPDATE: Transparency? We don't need no stinkin' transparency!

As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies. One reason: the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged "presidential communications." The refusal, approved by White House counsel Greg Craig's office, is the latest in a series of cases in which Obama officials have opted against public disclosure. . . .
After Obama's much-publicized Jan. 21 "transparency" memo, administration lawyers crafted a key directive implementing the new policy that contained a major loophole, according to FOIA experts. The directive, signed by Attorney General Eric Holder, instructed federal agencies to adopt a "presumption" of disclosure for FOIA requests. . . . But in a little-noticed passage, the Holder memo also said the new standard applies "if practicable" for cases involving "pending litigation." . . .

Read the whole thing. Obviously, Michael Isikoff's legs aren't tingling. BTW, one of the reasons I'm compiling this round-up is for the benefit of another one of my sources, who has a background in federal law enforcement and knows a thing or two about investigations.

UPDATE II: Little Miss Attila:

I think this is very simple: 1) on a national stage, one cannot fire whistle-blowers willy-nilly. Even lefties don’t like that, because everyone understands what that does to the system: when burglars are encouraged to feed poisoned dog food to the Dobermans that guard the shop, Bad Things are likely to happen.

So far, however, it's like looking for investigative reporting in the Jonas Brothers fan-club newsletter.

UPDATE III: Red State's Moe Lane:

I suggest that any journalist reading this and thinking about pursuing it further might want to start by examining this odd story from last year involving a supposedly fake letter coming from Amtrak Superintendent Joe Deely. Not to mention this OSHA release on a whistleblower . . . Not that Weiderhold is directly linked to either case, but these seem to be to be the most controversial cases recently involving internal problems requiring the attention of an Inspector General.

Read the rest.

UPDATE IV: The Washington Times:

On the very same day that the president fired Mr. Walpin, St. Hope's executive director, Rick Maya, left his job at St. Hope. He did not go quietly. His resignation letter charged Mr. Johnson and several St. Hope board members with numerous ethical violations. Most explosively, he charged that a board member improperly deleted e-mails of Mr. Johnson's that already were under a federal subpoena. . . .
On Wednesday, the Sacramento Bee reported that Mr. Maya's allegations have been deemed serious enough that the FBI is investigating potential obstruction of justice at St. Hope. In that light, the firing of Mr. Walpin, who properly blew the whistle on mismanagement and possible corruption, looks ill-considered. . . .

Read the rest. Strange -- the phrase "second-rate burglary" just came to mind, like a 1972 acid flashback . . .

UPDATE V: Ed Driscoll sees Obama doing a reverse-Clausewitz -- politics as warfare -- while Glenn Reynolds inexplicably links the Hartford Courant, but quotes a commentary by Salena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, making excuses for the fan-club-newsletter press corps:

The press could help keep things honest but has fewer resources and readers . . .

Whine, whine, whine. Look, lady: How hard could it be for reporters from the Tribune to ask Arlen Specter or Bart Sestak to comment on the IG firings? Hey, I've got an idea, Ms. Zito: How about you pick up the freaking phone call them for a comment?

Why is it nowadays, whenever editors hire somebody to write op-ed columns, it's never anybody who knows how to pick up a telephone? And then the lazy can't-use-a-phone op-ed idiots wonder why they have fewer readers . . .

UPDATE VI: Pundit & Pundette links with some thoughts on Obama's Chicago Way. Meanwhile, at 1:30 a.m. Monday, I've just made an executive decision to go down to Capitol Hill again today and talk to more sources.

There is no substitute for old-fashioned shoe leather. Just show up unannounced and buttonhole your source. It's an infallible method. Make a nuisance of yourself until they figure out that they need to start calling you, or else you'll be back again bugging them tomorrow.

PREVIOUSLY:

• 6/19: IG investigation: 'Dominoes Fall'
• 6/18: Targeting AIG bailout?
• 6/18: How's the weather in Sacramento?
• 6/18: Sen. Grassley wants more answers

Geithner and the Scapegoat Sweepstakes

Thanks to Smitty for watchdogging the latest headlines about SIGTARP Neil Barofsky while I was on the road to Richmond yesterday. It's important to see the big picture in this battle between Barofsky and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner:

The Wall Street bailout has been unpopular from its inception. . . . Now, we see unemployment soaring (more than 15% in Michigan, near 12% in California) and consumer confidence falling, while the stock market surges upward. You can't blame people for suspecting that massive taxpayer-funded assistance to financial giants like AIG, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America might have something to do with this widening chasm between prosperity on Wall Street and misery on Main Street. . . .
Polls indicate a growing perception that the Obama administration is mismanaging the economy, with special favors for politically connected Wall Street fat cats at the expense of ordinary American taxpayers. . . .
With another approaching crisis in banking and forecasts that unemployment will continue rising for months to come, Obama will eventually start looking for a scapegoat. Though once hailed as an economic savior, the nominee who was "too big to fail," Geithner is now odds-on favorite to win the Scapegoat Sweepstakes. SIGTARP Barofsky's watchdogging of the bailout "black hole" may be enough to push Geithner across the finish line.

Read the whole thing, which includes a "document dump" with Barofsky's quarterly IG report and other important documents on this important aspect of IG-Gate.

More questions for Secretary Geithner

As predicted, some of the best reporting on the Barofsky/Geithner feud is coming from financial reporters:

The watchdog charged with investigating fraud in the government bailout programs is feuding with the Treasury Department about who he answers to.
The question revolves around whether Treasury should play any role supervising Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general overseeing the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Since Barofsky took the job in December, he has launched at least 20 criminal investigations and six audits looking for wasted dollars. . . .
Barofsky said the question came up in early April when he sought to interview a Treasury attorney about the department's role in controversial bonus payments made to the unit of American International Group . . . responsible for that company's downfall. . . .

There's much more, so read the whole thing. The criminal investigations are important, because any interference in such investigations could be considered obstruction of justice. And the Treasury angle to the IG probe bears close watching, because Geithner's starting to look like an excellent candidate to become the next guy under Obama's bus.

TARP watchdog Neil Barofsky warns of 'far more dangerous' economic problems

As soon as I learned that Timothy Geithner's Treasury Department was obstructing the investigations of Neil Barofsky -- the special inspector general for the TARP financial bailout -- I predicted that "SIGTARP" was a watchdog who could take a bite out of the Obama administration. Now there's this:

(Via Rick Moran at American Thinker.)

• MORE ABOUT NEIL BAROFSKY
• AMERICAN SPECTATOR: 'THE WAR ON WATCHDOGS'

'The Legs of a Potential Scandal'

New York magazine's Joe Hagan writes about the suspicions surrounding Goldman Sachs, insurance giant AIG, and last fall's TARP bailout:

The AIG rescue is the incident from which all other Goldman conspiracy theories spring -- the original sin, in a sense, of Goldman's current public tarring. It's the act that first made the average man on the street sit up and say, "Hey, wait a minute. The secretary of the Treasury [i.e. Henry Paulson], who used to be the Goldman CEO, just spent $85 billion to buy a failing insurance giant that happened to owe his former firm a lot of money. Does that smell right to you?" It also seems to have the legs of a potential scandal, with Neil Barofsky, the inspector general overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, conducting an audit of the buyout.
Then again, if you’ve just posted $3.44 billion in second-quarter profits in an environment where, say, Morgan Stanley just reported a $1.26 billion loss, what does it matter what people say? . . .

Read the whole thing. These three facts -- (a) Goldman has spectacularly profited, at a time of rising unemployment, foreclosures and bank failures, (b) Goldman was the primary beneficiary of the TARP bailout, and (c) Goldman's former CEO was the driving force behind TARP -- are hard to reconcile in any way that doesn't raise the suspicion of corruption.

SIGTARP Barofsky's investigations are clearly raising questions embarrassing to the people who backed the bailout.

BTW, a friend e-mails to say that Barofsky's estimate of $23.7 trillion TARP liability is a number that "assumes The End of the World As We Know It, or Armageddon, in short." The e-mailer adds:

The number is correct, but the vast majority of the dollars are called, precisely, "contingent liabilities." They may, and they may NOT, become actual liabilities. [Bailout Nation author] Barry Ritholtz, who tends to be a lefty politically but a very hard-ass "numbers" guy pointed that out.
Yes, the bailout is unpopular and yes, it seems that Goldman Sachs has benefitted far beyond the laws of probability. Ritholtz agrees with that, too. And yes, CitiBank should be closed and sold for scrap.
But be careful with that $23T stuff.

The key part is, "The number is correct." The likelihood that taxpayers will actually be required to fork over $23.7 trillion is remote, but it's not a number that Barosky pulled out of a hat.

Oh, and speaking of scandal, Instpundit reminds us that today is the official publication date for Michelle Malkin's Culture of Corruption: Obama And His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies. It's the Best. Book. Evah! Today at her blog, Michelle looks at Obama crony Valerie Jarrett. This afternoon, Michelle will be on Sean Hannity's radio show and his Fox News TV show.

So buy two copies and give one to a liberal friend, just to annoy him.

The Mother of All IG-Gate Updates

On the Internet, stuff gets scattered around so that you never see it all in one place. Today's IG-Gate Update at the Hot Air Green Room pushes the story forward:

Behind closed doors on Capitol Hill last week, I asked a Republican source about the investigative efforts of Democratic staffers for the House Oversight Committee.
"Honestly?" the source said. "They're useless."
More than three weeks have passed since Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) joined the committee's ranking Republican, California Rep. Darrell Issa, to launch an investigation into the case of former Amtrak inspector general Fred Wiederhold Jr. . . .
Despite the "grave concerns" expressed by Towns and Issa three weeks ago, however, Republican sources on Capitol Hill have complained that Democratic staffers on the Oversight Committee have not shown much zeal for the investigation. Sources say Democratic staffers have skipped meetings and conference calls to which they were invited by GOP investigators, who are attempting to work with Grassley's staff in order to prevent unnecessary duplication of efforts. Sharing documents and scheduling interviews with witnesses, allowing Republican and Democratic investigators from both chambers an opportunity to question these witnesses, is a demanding logistical task. And GOP staffers complain that this task seems to be lacking in terms of bipartisanship. . . .

Read the whole thing, because toward the end, I make this point:

This is a huge story, involving multiple investigations, and 1,200 words here don’t even begin to summarize the 1,400 words there [at The American Spectator on Monday], to say nothing of the 400 words I did last night about the SIGTARP report.

Like I said, read the whole thing, and follow the links, because this is one big sprawling mother of a story. The best I can do in any single chunk is to bring in new facts, new quotes, new angles, and link to as much other the other stuff as possible. (That Green Room article includes more than 25 links, including the link to the Spectator article, which has more than a dozen links.)

If you'll go to Bob Belvedere's WWU-AM and scroll down, he's got a huge IG-Gate link dump with my reporting, Byron York's reporting, columns by Michelle Malkin, reports from ABC News, the Washington Post, etc. There's a lot of stuff out there, in other words, and you need to see it all if you want to try to understand this thing.

"Try," I say, because I don't even claim to understand it all yet. My sources talk about things and sometimes I can tell they're trying to drop me a hint of something they want me to write about, e.g., "Who Is Eleanor Acheson?" It's important to ask the right questions, as one of my sources said.

On the one hand, there is the temptation to focus on one aspect of the story -- the Washington Times keeps calling this "WalpinGate," which is too narrow -- but on the other hand, you've got to be careful not to waste time playing "connect-the-dots" with things that might not really be connected. Yes, there's a pattern, but that doesn't mean there's a conspiracy.

Still, as I predicted on June 18 -- right after Michelle Malkin's first column on the Walpin case slapped me upside the head -- this story isn't going away anytime soon. June 18 was the same day IG Fred Wiederhold delivered his report to the Amtrak board and suddenly retired, and also the same day Chuck Grassley made public his letter about the International Trade Commission IG, Judith Gwynne.

So barely a week after Walpin got his June 10 quit-or-be-fired ultimatum from White House lawyer Norm Eisen, there were two other IG cases. Then we have the case of the watchdog who's still hanging tough, SIGTARP, Neil Barofsky. The bailout watchdog showed yesterday how much trouble he can cause, and it's therefore no mystery why Treasury's giving Barofsky a hard time. (My money's still on Barofsky as the IG most likely to get a Cabinet secretary sent to federal prison.)

IG-Gate is a big mother, you see. Because I'm on deadline for a print magazine article, there's no time for me to do a complete aggregation now, but here are the major IG-Gate articles I've done so far:

• July 21: IG-Gate UPDATE: Behind the Scenes of the Investigations
• July 20: Behind Closed Doors
• July 14: The Little Scandal That Could
• July 9: Democrats Question AmeriCorps Officials Stonewall on IG Case
• June 28: Media & IG-Gate: Question the Timing?
• June 28: NTC Special Report: Obama vs. the Watchdogs
• June 25: Grassley: Amtrak 'Systematically Violated' IG Law
• June 25: Obama Plays Hardball With Watchdogs
• July 19: The 'Domino Theory' in the IG Scandal

Each of those items is chock-full of links to other items. As you can see, just six weeks into this story, there's a lot of stuff out there -- and, no doubt, a lot more to come. Just keep hitting the tip jar.

One of these days, I plan to hit the American Spectator with the mother of all expense reimbursement requests -- "$800 for fireworks?" "Promotional activity. Perfectly legitimate, Al." -- but in the meantime, Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Just in case you're wondering why Professor Reynolds loves this story so much, I once again remind you to read the whole thing. The professor's drooling at the prospect of The Mother of All Chris Dodd Updates.

Meanwhile, be sure to check out the IG-Gate Rule 3 memo, which offers more tasty watchdog morsels.

SIGTARP Strikes: IG Barofsky Report SaysTreasury Not Tracking Bailout Cash

The watchdog bites Tim Geithner:

The top watchdog over the financial bailout package said the Treasury Department is rejecting "common sense" by not requiring banks receiving billions of dollars in government money to say how they are using the money.
In a report to be released on Monday, Neil Barofsky said banks that have received money from the $700 billion bailout package passed last year are able to indicate how they are using taxpayer money and that Treasury should require banks to be more transparent. . . .
Barofsky is the Special Inspector General over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) that was passed by Congress in October. . . .

Read the whole thing. This SIGTARP report is a perfect example of why the Obama adminstration hates IGs. The Democrats just want to shovel money out the door and don't care who gets it, except to be sure their well-connected friends get their share.

According to the liberal neo-Keynesian economic gospel, as long as the federal government does X-billion dollars of deficit spending, that will produce X-plus-Y amount of stimulus value (where Y = Magic Government Spending Multiplier Effect) without regard to whether the money ends up feeding orphans or supplying the mistresses of Goldman Sachs executives with bustiers and garter belts

Unfortunately for liberals, the stupid taxpayers can never seem to comprehend the nuances of neo-Keynesian theory the way Nobel Prize-winning genius Paul Krugman does.

No matter how many times they're lectured about this "stimulus"/bailout brilliance, the idiots who pay the taxes get a little miffed to discover that their great-grandchildren's future has been hocked to pay for new wallpaper and wainscoting in the executive lavatory of a giant banking conglomerate which -- as every expert in Washington explained last fall -- was so frantically in need of cash that the branch managers were sending tellers to sell plasma to the blood bank, merely to prevent a complete catastrophic meltdown in the global finance system.

Those stupid taxpayers are like that. They have a habit of remembering irrelevant minor details like those 90-point headlines on the front pages of all the newspapers:

CRISIS LOOMS: WORLD ECONOMY TEETERS ON BRINK OF FINAL APOCALYPSE; CONGRESS DESPERATELY FIGHTS TO AVERT ECONOMIC DOOMSDAY; PLAGUES OF LOCUSTS, FROGS FEARED

Damned idiot taxpayers. What do they know about economics and budgets and stuff that only people with Ivy League Ph.Ds can ever hope to understand?

(H/T: Memeorandum.)

IG-Gate EXCLUSIVE in September 2009 print edition of The American Spectator

"The War On Watchdogs" is the most in-depth, comprehensive print article on the inspectors general scandal published to date, including this excerpt from near the end:

IN JUNE, THE HOUSE PASSED the Improved Financial and Commodity Markets Oversight and Accountability Act, which would give the president authority to dismiss and replace inspectors general at five financial regulatory agencies. . . . The bill was sponsored by Rep. John Larson (D-CT), who argued that making these IGs presidential appointees would make them more "independent" and "ensure better performance from government agencies." The IGs themselves strongly disagreed, testifying in opposition to the bill. . . . The Larson bill was also criticized by Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, which tracks government watchdogs. "I think you can be more independent reporting to a bipartisan board than being at the mercy of the president's good graces," Brian told the Washington Post.
If the Larson bill was opposed by the IGs themselves, and if presidential appointment might actually undermine, rather than enhance, the watchdogs' independence, what was the legislation intended to accomplish? That question was posed to me by a Republican congressional investigator who pointed out that Larson is a prominent "Friend of Chris"-- that is, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) who has come under intense criticism for his close, and perhaps corrupt, ties to the financial industry. Being a "Friend of Chris" may be entirely coincidental to Larson's IG bill, but it is certainly a curious coincidence at a time when the scandal-plagued Dodd is preparing for a tough 2010 reelection bid and will need more help than ever from the banking, investment, and insurance firms that have so generously contributed to his campaigns in the past. This is just one of several coincidences -- like the First Lady's relationship to AmeriCorps and the vice president's relationship to Amtrak -- that seemed to cluster around the IG story as it developed in the weeks following the White House ultimatum to Walpin. . . .

The entire article is nearly 3,000 words, so read the whole thing. The complete September issue is also now online, but you can get The American Spectator's exclusive coverage three weeks earlier by subscribing to the print edition now.

PREVIOUSLY at American Spectator Online:

• Sept. 11: What Has Amtrak's Interim IG Been Up To?
• Aug. 7: Senators Seek Answer From ITC About IG
• July 28: IG-Gate Update: 'No Doubt' Political Pressure Led to His Firing,Walpin Says
• July 26: SIGTARP Neil Barofsky vs. Geithner's 'Black Hole' Bailout
• July 24: IG-Gate: Why the Matsui Question Matters
• July 23: IG-Gate Update: Did Dem Congresswoman Intervene With Obama in Walpin Case?
• July 22: SIGTARP Barofsky Shows Why Watchdogs Are Important
• July 21: IG-Gate: Democratic Staffers 'Useless' in Investigations, SayRepublicans
• July 20: IG-Gate: Connecting the SIGTARP Dots
• July 20: Behind Closed Doors
• July 17: Amtrak IG: Important Background
• July 14: IG-Gate: Sincere Doubts
• July 14: The Little Scandal That Could
• July 9: Democrats Question AmeriCorps Official's Stonewall on IG Case
• July 1: Malkin on IG-Gate: Does the Endangered Species Act Include Watchdogs?
• June 26: Grassley: Amtrak 'Systematically Violated' IG Law
• June 25: Eleanor Acheson: Lobbyist
• June 25: Obama Plays Hardball With Watchdogs
• June 23: Amtrak IG Probe: Who Is Eleanor Acheson?
• June 19: IG-Gate: Domino Theory
• June 18: AmeriCorps Scandal Won't Go Away Soon

Barofsky caught telling the truth in public

by Smitty (h/t HotAir)

We were promised and example of unprecedented transparency by this administration. An example of unprecedented transparency need not be a good example.
This podcast is highly interesting. About 12 minutes in, Tapper asks (to paraphrase) if expanding the initial $700 bills to cover a hypothetical $23.7 trills represents a perversion of the original intent. The verbal tap dance is lively.
God bless Neil Barofsky, and keep the SIGTARP safe. Money on that scale distorts behavior.

Video: 'Fox & Friends' on IG-Gate

Sorry about having to use video from Media Matters, but watch it anyway:

The "Fox & Friends" people are actually mischaracterizing the situation, as I understand it. According to my sources, Amtrak IG Fred Wiederhold decided on his own to retire, during a meeting where he presented the report from Willkie, Farr & Gallagher.

As the situation was described to me, the hostile reaction at the June 18 meeting convinced Wiederhold that Amtrak was going to continue its interference with the IG's office. So he decided to retire rather than continue butting his head against the wall. Therefore, Wiederhold wasn't forced out, as the "Fox & Friends" crew suggest, although it certainly wasn't an amicable parting.

Notice something important here: Wiederhold hasn't gone running to the media with his side of the story. Nor will he. People will be subpoenaed and will testify under oath. The truth will come out -- or else.

Think about this. Sen. Grassley has asked Amtrak to make available for interviews four staffers from the inspector general's office. If Amtrak officials have illegally interfered with the IG's work -- and this is the allegation, at least -- then it is natural to expect some CYA by those officials. But when a federal investigation is underway, run-of-the-mill CYA can very easily become perjury, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.

And the same is also true in the AmeriCorps/Walpin case and the ITC/Gwynn case. As they say in Washington, it's not the crime, it's the cover-up. Which is why, of the four IG probes now underway, the "SIGTARP" case -- involving Neil Barofsky, who's still on the job as special inspector general for the TARP bailout -- probably presents the most explosive potential.

Barofsky has been scratching around on the AIG bonuses, and he's already reported that there has been all kinds of waste, fraud and abuse with the TARP bailout. As Dan Reihl was one of the first to notice, if you read between the lines, there seems to be some suspicion directed toward Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

The bailout was unpopular on a bipartisan basis, so if the SIGTARP situation heats up, there will be plenty of Democrats willing to vote to hold hearings so they can grill Geithner about taxpayer cash for "Wall Street fat cats." While Attorney General Eric Holder may get some scrutiny in the AmeriCorps IG case, it's the SIGTARP case that has the most potential to send a Cabinet member under the Obama bus. And trying to lie your way out of a scandal is a very dangerous thing, when it involves a federal investigation.

But that's just speculation. These investigations are now going forward regardless of what anybody says on TV, in the MSM, or on the blogosphere. No need to hype up right-wing "Fitzmas" fantasies. Just pay attention.

Every day, I check a blog called . .

. . . Memeorandum, which is not actually a blog, but an aggregation site. And when I logged on this morning, the item at the top right of the page was David Brooks' latest column:

Every day, I check a blog called Marginal Revolution, which is famous for its erudite authors, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok, and its intelligent contributors. Last week, one of those contributors asked a question that is fantastical but thought-provoking: What would happen if a freak solar event sterilized the people on the half of the earth that happened to be facing the sun? . . .

You can read the rest, which only serves to highlight the "fantastical but thought-provoking" question that has haunted American journalism for years: "Why the hell is David Brooks getting paid to write a column?"

My pet theory is that Brooks has a cache of photos, acquired by nefarious and clandestine means, showing New York Times publisher Pinch Sulzberger in compromising situations with someone who is not Mrs. Sulzberger.

Casting no direct aspersions upon Tyler Cowen and the gang at Marginal Revolution -- it's certainly not their fault Brooks reads their blog -- theirs is hardly the most "thought-provoking" hypothetical ever entertained on a blog:

Swear to God, if they ever want a Gentile prime minister, my first order . . .

Just a thought experiment, you see. Whatever follows such a fantastical "if" is no more to be taken seriously than that Marginal Revolution question was to be considered a hopeful wish that half the earth's population would be sterilized.

Furthermore, if one is going to write a column on such a theme, the diffident, philosophical approach taken by Brooks is the least interesting way to go about it. No, by God, make it passionate and intensely personal:

When he was 16, Bill McCain told his mother, “You won’t ever have to worry about me again.” He left the family farm in rural Randolph County, Alabama, and moved 40 miles away to West Point, Georgia, where he went to work on the night shift in a cotton mill.
You’ve heard of people who worked their way through college? My father worked his way through high school. Most of his cotton-mill pay went for room and board and books -- in those days, public-school students in Georgia had to buy their own textbooks -- at the school where he became a football star. . . .

You can read the whole thing and, if you do, consider what was intended by the final sentence of that little essay. In an era when the newspaper industry is laying off newsroom personnel to the tune of a thousand people a month, David Brooks is paid a full-time salary by Sulzberger. In return for this salary -- his compensation package is rumored to be in the neighborhood $300,000 annually -- Brooks is required to produce only two 800-word columns per week.

Do the math, and this amounts to 104 columns per year, at nearly $3,000 per column, so that Brooks' rate is somewhere around $3.50 a word -- and yet he apparently cannot be bothered to do any actual reporting.

Byron York breaks news every time he files for the Washington Examiner, a tabloid that is distributed free on the streets of the nation's capital. Yet that ungrateful wretch Brooks is indulged as he wastes 804 words -- yes, I counted -- doing philosophy, rather than journalism. To borrow a phrase from Hunter S. Thompson, it's "enough to make a man wonder what newsprint is for."

My grievance with Brooks is not merely because, as Sister Toldjah says, he's a phony political chameleon. Politics aside, Brooks is a goddamned disgrace to the profession of journalism.

Last week, I filed 3,000 words about IG-Gate for the September print edition of The American Spectator (subscribe now) and readers can rest assured that Al Regnery isn't paying $3.50 a word or whatever preposterous sum Sulzberger pays David Brooks for his predictable expeditions into newsprint wastage.

Frankly, if it weren't for generous readers hitting the tip jar, I couldn't afford the gas to drive back and forth to D.C. for my "shoe leather" trips to Capitol Hill, to say nothing of such other necessary expenses as cigarettes, coffee and $1.29 chili cheese dogs. (Legitimate tax-deductible expenses, I hasten to add. The IRS may not understand the vital role that chili cheese dogs play in investigative journalism, but I've got witnesses. And receipts.)

Meanwhile, with the filthy lucre he receives from the Sulzberger empire, Brooks can actually afford to live a $12 cab fare away from the Capitol. Yet the only time Brooks can be bothered to do anything remotely resembling reporting is when he's sucking up to Obama administration hacks at those Atlantic Monthly salmon-and-risotto soirees.

Last week, SIGTARP Neil Barofsky raised hell in a House Oversight Committe hearing, but I suppose that Brooks was too busy pondering existential philosophy to bother grabbing a notebook and hailing a cab over to the Hill.

Me? My e-mail inbox is overflowing and my wife cleaned my desk so that I lost the paper on which I'd printed out Gerald Walpin's phone number. Therefore, in between everything else I had to do yesterday, I spent a couple hours plowing through my e-mail until I finally retreived that number.

Brooks isn't merely wasting his time, he's wasting mine, and I've got important work to do. Why expend more than 700 words on him today? Everything that needs to be said about that disgusting stain on the soul of American journalism was summed up three months ago by an award-winning blogger:

Fuck you, David Brooks.

Please hit the tip jar. I'm planning another trip to DC tomorrow, and I'll need more chili cheese dogs.

AmeriCorps stonewalls IG-Gate congressional investigation

Byron York:

A top official of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the government agency that oversees AmeriCorps, has refused to answer questions from congressional investigators about the White House's role in events surrounding the abrupt firing of inspector general Gerald Walpin.
Frank Trinity, general counsel for the Corporation, met with a bipartisan group of congressional investigators on Monday. When the investigators asked Trinity for details of the role the White House played in the firing, Trinity refused to answer, according to two aides with knowledge of the situation. "He said that's a prerogative of the White House, so he didn't feel at liberty to disclose anything regarding White House communications," says one aide.

Read the rest. There will be more news on this.

UPDATE: Kelley Beaucar Vlahos of Fox News:

"The mounting evidence that there might be political interference with the IGs is disturbing," said Pete Sepp, vice president for policy and communications at the National Taxpayers Union. "The IGs are being emasculated."
"When inspectors general across the administration have roadblocks placed in their way, American taxpayers should worry. A threat to one's independence is a threat to them all," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas. . . .
Jake Wiens, an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, a non-profit watchdog group in Washington, D.C., warned against seeing "patterns" in the dismissals. Taken individually, each IG's firing is a distinct case that could be "extremely problematic."
For example, Weins said, the Walpin case is mired in a number of "complicating issues," like documented complaints against Walpin from within the agency and a pending ethics complaint against him by the U.S. Attorney's Office in California.
Walpin is also the only IG in question to be fired by the White House. In the case of Weiderhold, the Amtrak IG answers to the Amtrak board of directors, currently chaired by Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del. . . .

Wiens makes a good point that IG-Gate involves three distinct cases of IG's who have quit or been terminated -- AmeriCorps, Amtrak and the International Trade Commission -- and also the case of "SIGTARP," Neil Barofsky, inspector general for the TARP bailout, who has complained that the Treasury Department has not been fully cooperative. Each of these cases involves different facts.

UPDATE 12:05 p.m.: Did some reporting of my own for the American Spectator:

Democratic congressional staffers investigating the firing of AmeriCorps inspector general Gerald Walpin asked tough questions of an agency lawyer who refused to discuss White House involvement in the case, a source familiar with the investigation tells the Spectator. . . .
So far, the source said, interviews with "key board members" at CNCS contradict White House special counsel Norman Eisen's assertion that the June 10 firing followed an "extensive review" at the request of the CNCS board. Board members have told congressional investigators that "they weren't contacted [by the White House] until after the decision was made," the source said. . . .

Read the whole thing. Last week, Michelle Malkin called me an "investigative journalist," which is a term that I've always found troublesome. It's not really anything special. An investigative journalist is just a reporter with sources. And developing sources, like everything else in journalism, is a skill (something you learn) rather than a talent (something you're born with).

At last night's book-signing party, I was discussing this with someone and said that the difference between a pundit and a reporter can be summarized in four words: "Pick up the phone!"

Anyone can Google up the phone numbers of a congressman, make a call and ask to speak to his press secretary, and try to get a statement. What kills me is when I see someone like Ross Douthat -- with the resources and prestige of the New York Times at his disposal -- who refuses to use that awesome power to its full extent. "Pick up the phone!"

It's just inertia, really. Sitting in front of your computer and pontificating about the passing scene can too easily become a habit. If you never get up off your butt, make some phone calls and do some reporting, you stop thinking like a journalist. Before you know it, you're just another damned useless intellectual.

IG-Gate Update

Fox News obtains notes from a meeting that led to the firing of AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin:

The informal meeting notes, taken by CNCS Counsel Frank Trinity, said that board members were indeed concerned about Walpin's "behavior." . . .
But the account also shows that Chairman Alan Solomont stated concern about Walpin's accusations against the board and not his mental health as the apparent cause for the dispute that led to Walpin's termination. . . .
A congressional investigator who participated in a three-hour meeting with Trinity on Monday told FOXNews.com that it was clear the board sought Walpin's ouster because of hurt feelings and professional friction, even though inspectors general are supposed to be free to challenge staff at their respective agencies. The investigator, who requested anonymity, argued the White House did not thoroughly review the matter.
"It was the disagreements between the IG and the senior management at the agency that provoked the board to remove Walpin," the investigator said. "The senior people at the agency chafed under Walpin's oversight. ... They communicated this to the board, which rubber-stamped senior management. [The board] took it to the White House, which rubber-stamped the board."

Hmmm. Is Fox's source also my source? Then why . . . Never mind. As long as it advances the story, I'm not particularly concerned with who gets what. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are working to muzzle federal watchdogs in the financial sector:

Inspectors general at five financial regulatory agencies are objecting to legislation that would elevate their positions to the presidential-appointment level, arguing that the move would compromise their ability to conduct independent investigations.
The bill would elevate the five officials at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the National Credit Union Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

Lots of graft opportunities in those agencies, y'see. Don't need independent watchdogs snooping around while the Chicago Way is put into operation on Wall Street. And here's some news on the "SIGTARP" story I overlooked last week:

Congress did not legislate transparency for its own members' manipulation of the bailout fund, known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP. . . .
[T]he Treasury Department steered $135 million in TARP money to a bank in Hawaii after Sen. Daniel K. Inouye's staff contacted bank regulators on its behalf. Mr. Inouye, a Democrat, is Hawaii's senior senator. Nothing unusual so far: Members of Congress have been lobbying for home-state banks almost since TARP started -- so much so that congressional influence is the subject of a TARP inspector general report due out this summer. In one prominent case, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) arranged a meeting between regulators and OneUnited of Massachusetts, a bank in which her husband held shares. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) later wrote language into the bailout bill that effectively directed the Treasury to give special consideration to OneUnited, and he followed up with a call to Treasury. The bank got $12 million. (Emphasis added.)

That forthcoming report from "SIGTARP" -- special inspector general Neil Barofsky -- should be lots of fun.

IG-Gate: It's not about Walpin

That's perhaps the most important thing in my American Spectator report today:

Yet the investigations into President Obama's evident crackdown on IGs -- designated watchdogs who guard against waste, fraud and abuse in federal agencies -- are not about [Americorps inspector general Gerald] Walpin.
Those familiar with the investigations (and yes, that noun is plural) caution against personalizing or politicizing the situation. These sources are especially concerned that inquiries by Republican members of Congress should not be portrayed as a partisan "gotcha" game against the popular new president.
Similar words of caution are expressed by some members of the IG community, who note that Walpin had only been watchdogging the Corporation for National and Community Service for two years. An able attorney and certainly not the doddering incompetent that Obama officials portrayed him to be, Walpin hasn't been an IG long enough to have acquired "veteran" status, and some say he had a reputation as "arrogant" or "holier-than-thou."
Whatever Walpin's reputation, however, sources familiar with his dismissal believe it was no accident that he was shown the door immediately after getting into a dispute with Eric Holder's Justice Department over a program affiliated with Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, an enthusiastic political ally of Obama. And perhaps the most important fact of the case so far is that the FBI is now investigating an accusation that e-mails relevant to Walpin's work were deleted by Johnson or others. Destroying evidence in a federal investigation is a serious crime, no matter what the other circumstances of the case may be. . . .

Lots more where that came from, so please read the whole thing. And I want to emphasize that the implied criticism of Walpin is not my personal point of view, it's what others have said. These sources, however, also emphasize that criticism from other IGs does not mean that Walpin wasn't doing good work or that his firing was justified. But this is not a referendum on Walpin; it's about the principle of IG independence.

Also, please especially note that there are multiple investigations underway at this point. Walpin is one of only three IGs who have gotten the ax in the past two weeks, and the Amtrak IG situation is currently heating up. Last night, Dan Riehl turned up some very interesting research about Amtrak general counsel Eleanor Acheson.

Really, this goes back to the question that Rick Moran asked Tuesday night: "Is there a story here?" The answer is clearly, "yes." Whether there is a scandal or any actual crime, there is no such accusation. But if you just stop to consider that AmTrak got $1.3 billion in the "stimulus" bill, and that the IG for Amtrak was complaining about interference from Amtrak bosses, the investigation of that alleged interference is a definitely a story -- no matter what the investigation discovers.

Personally, the angle that I find most intriguing is the reported conflict between the Treasury Department and Neil Barofsky, the special IG for the TARP financial bailout. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) is bird-dogging that one and . . .

Like I said, read the whole thing.

IG-Gate: Asking the right questions

The unexplained resignation of AmTrak inspector general Fred Wiederhold raises an important question:

WHO IS ELEANOR ACHESON?

Exactly why that's an important question . . . well, maybe Fred Wiederhold could explain that, but nobody's heard a word from Fred since he resigned Thursday.

What we do know is that Wiederhold was asked to provide "specific examples of agency interference with OIG audits and/or investigations." Maybe if somebody looked closely at those specific examples, they'd find Ms. Acheson's fingerprints, but that's strictly a hypothetical, because Wiederhold resigned before he could produce those specific examples.

What we do know is that Amtrak is Joe Biden's favorite government boondoggle, that Ms. Acheson donated to Biden's presidential campaign, and that Amtrak is budgeted for $1.3 billion in stimulus money -- money that Wiederhold would have been watchdogging for "waste, fraud and abuse," if he hadn't resigned last week.

Another question that needs to be asked: When are Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. Susan Collins going to convene a hearing on the firing of AmeriCorps IG Gerald Walpin?

As Rick Moran notes at American Thinker, we're now up to three ex-IGs in less than two weeks and there seems to be a pattern developing. This is to say nothing of the situation with Neil Barofsky, special IG for the TARP bailout money, who is at odds with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

You spend a little shoe-leather on Capitol Hill, and next thing you know, somebody's explaining that the two questions for Timothy Geithner are "what did he know and when did he know it?"

Watch out for that bus, Mr. Geithner.

Thanks to Carol at No Sheeples Here for the artwork, which is merely hypothetical. Thanks to Jimmie Bise for paying close attention, and to Pundette for her praise of the old-fashioned shoe-leather method.

UPDATE: Jehuda the Rhetorican sees the plot thickening and, as predicted, Michelle Malkin likes the Ellie Acheson question.

The point is, it's the right question. After I posted about Acheson, I made a phone call: "Am I right?"

"Even more right than you were a couple of hours ago."

We'll call that source Deep Cleavage. Throw 'em so far off the scent, they'll need a map . . .

UPDATE II: More linky-love for the Amtrak IG story from Frugal Cafe and Fire Andrea Mitchell.

UPDATE III: Acheson was brought in as general counsel after Amtrak fired five top officials in December 2006. Thanks to Moe Lane for the tip.

OBAMAPHILIA: LIVE!

President Jonas Brothers meets the editors of his fan-club newsletter, and we're liveblogging the screaming orgasmic thrill of the White House press conference . . .

12: 31 p.m. ET: He wants to address three issues . . .

12:32 p.m.: "Threats and beatings" -- he's talking about the Teamsters?

12:33 p.m.: "This is about the people of Iran . . ." Oh.

12:34 p.m.: Wow. No Teleprompter today.

12:35 p.m.: Iran must govern through "respect, not coercion." But just wait until they pass Card Check.

12:36 p.m.: "Clean energy," the kind that lobbyists and campaign contributors endorse!

12:37 p.m.: Health care -- "We will not add to our deficits," as opposed to everything else Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke have been doing for the past five months.

12:38 p.m.: "Reform is not an option, it's a necessity" -- hmmm. What happened to "respect, not coercion"?

12:39 p.m.: Iranian nukes. Softball.

12:40 p.m.: "An extraordinary debate now taking place in Iran . . . " Yeah, blood in the streets is "extraordinary debate." Except maybe in Chicago and Tehran.

12:41 p.m.: He calls on HuffPo!

12:42 p.m.: "We can't say definitively what happened" when Ahmadinejad stole the election.

12:44 p.m.: "What we can do is to say unequivocally" that we're not going to lift a finger to stop the brutal undemocratic crackdown in Tehran.

12:45 p.m.: "I'm not going to make news about Ben Bernanke . . ." because I understand that all these anonymous "administration officials" badmouthing Bernanke in the media are actually Tim Geithner trying to cover his skinny ass.

12:46 p.m.: "There's got to be somebody who's responsible . . . monitoring the systemic risks," unlike Neil Barofsky, who's getting stonewalled by Geithner.

12:47 p.m.: "Systemic risk. Yeah. Systemic risk. Rain man."

12:48 p.m.: He's talking AIG now.

12:49 p.m.: Major Garrett throws a 90 mph fastball at Obama's left ear: "What took you so long?" Obama name-checks "Major," just to signal to the MSNBC viewers that this is an evil necon question.

12:51 p.m.: More health care questions. Yawn. It's DOA, because Geithner tanked the economy, and now we can no more afford it than Suderman can afford to marry McArdle.

12:53 p.m.: "Tinkering around the edges . . ." No, by God, we're going to eviscerate the free-market!

12:54 p.m.: Notice that there's no concern about "systemic risk" in nationalizing 1/7th of the American economy. . . .

12:55 p.m.: "I get two, three letters a day." Right. You want to see my e-mail inbox, O?

12:56 p.m.: "Discipline health insurance companies" -- with a ball gag and nipple clips.

12:57 p.m.: "Quality care for a reasonable price" -- This is where Obama's resemblance to the Allstate ad guy comes in so handy.

12:58 p.m.: "Legitimate debates" about health care. Let's just hope it's not an "extraordinary debate."

12:59 p.m.: Another Iran question. Everybody laughs at Obama's joke.

1:00 p.m.: Smitty's on the phone! "Hey, I'm liveblogging . . ." Smitty says "Dude ain't packin' the gear."

1:04 p.m.: Obama makes an ear joke.

1:05 p.m.: More health care. The Allstate guy sees a "legitimate concern," but one he plans to ignore.

1:06 p.m.: "You can't preclude people from getting health insurance because of a pre-existing condition." Right. Like voting in Chicago, where death is not a "pre-existing condition" that disqualifies Democrats from casting a ballot.

1:07 p.m.: "Guarantee you . . . what's going to happen is . . ." The Prophet has spoken!

1:08 p.m.: Asked about his smoking habit! Cool. Or, uh, Kool.

1:10 p.m.: This is the one thing I like best about Obama. He's a nicotine fiend. Maybe after Geithner goes to prison, Obama can send him a carton of Newports every month . . .

1:12 p.m.: "The relationship that we have with Chile . . ." I did not have relations with that Latin American nation!

1:14 p.m.: I'm waiting for him to encourage "extraordinary debate" in Chile.

1:15 p.m.: A gay reporter asks about unemployment and the need for a second stimulus. . . . Obama talks about his inability to predict the future. As opposed to his ability to predict health care, "systemic risks," etc. Nothing worse than watching an Ivy League law-school graduate talking economics.

1:16 p.m.: "We know for a fact . . ." Whenever a Democrat starts a sentence that way, look for a lie.

1:18 p.m.: "The American people have the right to feel this is a tough time." Feelings, woh woh woh feelings . . .

1:19 p.m.: "I get letters every day . . ." And I'm in e-mail correspondence with the former oil minister of Nigeria.

1:21 p.m.: African-American unemployment question. Nothing worse than watching an Ivy League law-school graduate talking statistics.

1:22 p.m.: "We want to find tools . . ." Hey, the WH press corps is full of tools!

1:24 p.m.: Somebody tries to interrupt El Presidente!

1:25 p.m.: "We have to believe that ultimately justice will prevail." This is actually a coded message: Hey, Geithner, get ready for the orange jumpsuit!

Your Man In Washington

"Oh, I remember you," said the receptionist. "You were here last week."

Indeed, I replied, adding that I'm likely to become a familiar face. When she asked my name, I handed her a business card, and she bid me to have a seat while the person whom I'd come to see was summoned.

Monday afternoon found me on Capitol Hill, once more asking questions about the Obama administration's campaign against inspectors general. As Smitty says, volume of fire has an accuracy all its own, and so I'll be making more trips like this in the near future.

Sitting in the lobby of this office, I inquired about directions to another office. The receptionist gestured this way and that -- "go down by the elevators and out that way . . . go left . . . past the Capitol and across . . ." -- in such a manner that even an old Boy Scout like me might never get there in time for his appointment 45 minutes later.

"Hmmm, sounds complicated . . . do you have some kind of map?" I asked. She walked over to hand me a tourist-type 7"x14" map bearing the motto "Getting Around Washington."

This map was of such a scale as to have the intersection of Florida and New York avenues in the northeast corner and Arlington Cemetery in the southwest corner. The type was in a nearly microscopic font -- 4-point Helvetica, I'd say, although I didn't have a pica gauge handy.

With its itty-bitty buildings, teeny-tiny streets and miniature lettering, this map was unlikely to be much assistance to a guy from out of town trying to make his way hurriedly from one office to another. Yet the map could still be useful to an experienced Washington journalist.

"Now, which building are we in?" I asked, holding the map in front of me. The receptionist leaned over and pointed as she explained the directions again.

"Yes, I see," I said with sincere appreciation.

Just then a door opened and the person I'd come to see entered the lobby, interrupting my cartographic inquiry. He and I spoke in a small conference room for about 15 minutes. There was someone else he wanted me to meet but, checking his Blackberry, he reported that this person did not seem to be returning his calls and text messages.

What is it with these young people in Washington nowadays? Must all communication be conducted by Blackberry and iPhone? Does it never occur to them that in certain circumstances the best method might be to do a little walking and knock on somebody's door?

"Listen, if you know where this guy's at, I say we go get him," I suggested, but he balked.

We talked some more -- I'll tell you about it in an upcoming story -- and then I mentioned my appointment in another building.

"What time do you get off work here? Maybe we could meet for beers and burgers later." Alas, no -- his girlfriend was returning from New York and they needed to catch up.

Drat. Well, another appointment awaited on the other side of the Capitol and who knew how long it would take to get there? The fellow walked me back into the lobby, and was prepared to take his leave, but I suggested he step out into the hallway with me.

"This Iran thing is sucking up all the media oxygen right now, but that won't last forever," I said, and explained what I intended to do. He agreed that more people ought to be doing it my way.

Was he just trying to humor me? Does he think I'm . . . OK, eccentric would be the polite way to say it, but "eccentric" is for rich folks. I'm just plain crazy.

No one could argue with that, but crazy works, if it's the right kind of crazy. Walking up First Street toward Constitution Avenue, then cutting across the Capitol grounds toward Independence Avenue as if I knew exactly where I was going, I called my next appointment to inform her of my ETA. Then I immediately called another source, who also knows Capitol Hill like the back of his hand, arranging to have coffee Wednesday morning before Grover's meeting.

The high temperature was 85 in D.C. Monday, and I was wearing a blue blazer, striped silk tie, button-down blue shirt, olive slacks and black leather shows. Crazy, but sharply dressed.

Considerations of honor require that a Georgian never complain about summer heat within earshot of a Yankee, and my next appointment was one such. So while going through the magnetometers -- damn those terrorists, for imposing all these bothersome security hassles on a patriotic American journalist -- I soaked up the air-conditioning and concentrated on becoming mentally cool. On the elevator up, I buttoned the blazer and wiped the sweat off my face.

Down the corridor, around the corner, into the office, poke my head in and ask to see the person with whom I had the appointment. She emerges wearing a T-shirt and shorts, since her next appointment is at the gym for an African dance class, to be followed by a jog around the Mall.

What is it with these young people in Washington nowadays? Exercise! I'd walked about seven blocks already since parking my car at Union Station, but that was mere transportation -- utilitarian pedestrianism -- whereas one can't exercise without donning shorts and paying a gym fee.

Exercise is a form of conspicuous consumption, an ostentation of leisure: Look, I'm exercising! To qualify as exercise, the activity must never take the form of anything useful, remunerative or commonplace -- pushing a lawnmower or moving furniture may have cardiovascular benefits, but are too plebian to be considered exercise. The roofer who totes shingles and swings a hammer for eight hours a day is not exercising, nor can the adult entertainer who does table dances between her stage routines on the stripper pole be said to exercise.

Well, never mind the sociological observations. I'm shown around the office and introduced. There's a water cooler, so I get a cup of that. Then I offer to walk the health-conscious staffer to her gym appointment -- another four blocks for me, but I'm not exercising, because it's about finding out how the staffer can help me get the story. (Useful and perhaps remunerative, if less commonplace than it once was.)

The staffer gets to her gym, and I non-exercise three blocks up to the Tune Inn on Pennsylvania for a burger, fries and beverage. CNN is reporting the Metro crash, but my eyes are on the stock market news -- the Dow's off 200 points. Call Jimmie and ask him to post the "Wall Street P.M." report at NTCNews.com. And, oh, yeah -- the Metro crash, too.

Am I indifferent to death and grievous injury in a train wreck? No. But the slumping market is relevant to my business on Capitol Hill, you see. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is the genius who's on the hook for the neo-Keynesian "bailout" that is manifestly failing to achieve its objectives as economic policy. (It Won't Work.)

Geithner also appears to be on the hook for the suspicious shenanigans with TARP Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky. Heh heh heh. How would you like the be a Treasury secretary presiding over a stock market sell-off while, at the same time, you've got people on Capitol Hill poking around a potential scandal with your fingerprints all over it?

There's plenty enough room under the Obama bus for Geithner, you see, and he's starting to look like an increasingly convenient fall guy. So even if my Capitol Hill trip Monday wasn't as fruitful as I'd hoped, the story continues developing, and I'm steadily accumulating more face-time with possible sources.

Maybe I wasn't exercising as I walked back to Union Station, but I was certainly smiling. Ain't no school like the Old School. And you'd be surprised what scandalous facts an experienced journalist can uncover.

All I need is a map.