Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

Bob Lonsberry had apologized Thursday and agreed to undergo diversity training and remain off the air indefinitely. But he lost his job after attacking critics in a Web column Monday, saying the "liberal and afraid ... seek to dominate society through threat and intimidation."

Even [FCC] Chairman Michael Powell has declared himself "troubled" by the egregious radio concentration.

What is clear about Clear Channel is that it can't be disentangled from Bush's personal fortune or his public policy. The merger of government and business in the current administration goes far beyond the workings of any previous president.

As Michael Lind, author of Made in Texas, told BuzzFlash in an interview, Bush, a failed businessman and mediocre student, excels at one thing: the practice of corporate cronyism. In the ideal world of corporate cronyism, a tight knit group of businessmen and government officials operate as one seamless entity of mutually beneficial economic forces. It's a plutocratic version of socialism, where the state and the privileged business compadres of those running the government march lockstep together to achieve corporate welfare goals, funded by the taxpayer. It's an economic system where access to the marketplace is limited to a close knit group of cronies and campaign contributors. It has as much in common with a truly free market system as Communism.

There are close ties between the company and President Bush. The Vice Chair of the company is Tom Hicks, a member of the Bush Pioneer club for elite (and generous) donors. The relationship between Bush and Hicks goes back even further, however. The two were embroiled in scandal when Hicks, as University of Texas Regent, was responsible for granting endowment management contracts of the newly created (under legislation signed by Bush) UT Investment Management Co. (UTIMCO). The contracts were given to firms politically connected to both Hicks and Bush, including the Carlyle Group - a firm which has the first President Bush on the payroll and had the second one on the payroll until just weeks before receiving this lucrative business. The board of UTIMCO also included the Chair of Clear Channel, L. Lowry Mays. In addition, Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers from George Bush, making him a wealthy man through a deal that was partially sweetened by a shiny new taxpayer financed stadium, which included valuable land obtained at below market rates through the use of eminent domain.

So how does any of this relate to Bush? Let's go back to 1989. Bush has just invested $605,000 -- money he borrowed -- in a syndicate that bought the Texas Rangers. (He would later repay the loan with proceeds from the sale of Harken stock - remember Harken?). Though Bush had a 1.8 percent share of the club, the terms of this deal with the Rangers specified that once his partners made back their investment, his share would jump to 11 percent.

The Rangers' stadium was on the small side, so the new owners decided a grand, new stadium was in order. A 13-acre parcel of land bought in Arlington, Tex., at below-market rates. "ush and his partners used Arlington's [municipal] powers to condemn the land for the stadium, and relied on taxpayers to repay the bonds sold to build the Ballpark -- receiving what amounts to a direct $135-million subsidy," wrote Robert Bryce of the Austin Chronicle. (Indeed, a jury later found that the ballpark property's original owners were owed more than six times what they were paid.)

When the new stadium was completed in 1993, the value of the Rangers immediately increased by $26 million, to $132 million. In 1997, Financial World magazine named the ballpark the most profitable stadium in major league baseball.

But it wasn't worth $250 million. Yet in 1998, Tom Hicks, a friend of Bush's, bought the Rangers for this enormous amount, making Bush -- who walked away with close to $15 million -- a very, very rich man. But then, Hicks had done pretty well for himself in previous years, thanks in part to Bush.

When Bush became governor in 1995, Hicks, who was then head of the corporate raider firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, was confirmed as a University of Texas regent. Hicks hired lobbyists to garner support for a bill -- which Bush approved -- creating the UT Investment Management Company (UTIMCO), a nonprofit corporation dedicated to managing public university money. The best part: Bush also got rid of the requirements to disclose "all details concerning the investments made and the income realized" and to have "a well-recognized performance measurement service" review the investments. UTIMCO was, in essence, left to operate on its own. (a GWBush MO)

Hicks became UTIMCO's first chair and started handing out contracts to private investment firms to manage some of the endowment. He was aided by none other than Clear Channel's chairman and CEO, L. Lowry Mays, who was also on the board (and still is).

According to the Houston Chronicle, by March 1999, UTIMCO handled more than $11 billion of University of Texas endowment money, along with the state's higher education trust, the Permanent University Fund. Close to $2 billion was handed to private investment management companies -- hundreds of millions of which ended up in the hands of firms run by associates of Hicks and major Republican Party donors. One of them, the Carlyle Group, is well known for its financial relationships with President Bush and prominent members of the Reagan/Bush administrations.

Of course, this didn't sit well with everyone in Texas. Flogged by the press, Hicks didn't seek reappointment when his term expired in 1999.

No matter. Like Mays, Tom Hicks and his brother, R. Steven Hicks, had also gotten into the media business. In 1999, they merged their radios companies into AMFM, Inc. That same year, Clear Channel bought AMFM, and Tom Hicks became Clear Channel's vice chairman.

The CIA leak
Robert Novak

October 1, 2003 | Print | Send


WASHINGTON -- I had thought I never again would write about retired diplomat Joseph Wilson's CIA-employee wife, but feel constrained to do so now that repercussions of my July 14 column have reached the front pages of major newspapers and led off network news broadcasts. My role and the role of the Bush White House have been distorted and need explanation.

The leak now under Justice Department investigation is described by former Ambassador Wilson and critics of President Bush's Iraq policy as a reprehensible effort to silence them. To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.

The current Justice investigation stems from a routine, mandated probe of all CIA leaks, but follows weeks of agitation. Wilson, after telling me in July that he would say nothing about his wife, has made investigation of the leak his life's work -- aided by the relentless Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. These efforts cannot be separated from the massive political assault on President Bush.

This story began July 6 when Wilson went public and identified himself as the retired diplomat who had reported negatively to the CIA in 2002 on alleged Iraq efforts to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger. I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment. Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one.

During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.

How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry.

A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in my column as an "operative," a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years. While the CIA refuses to publicly define her status, the official contact says she is "covered" -- working under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the Agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations.

The Justice Department investigation was not requested by CIA Director George Tenet. Any leak of classified information is routinely passed by the Agency to Justice, averaging one a week. This investigative request was made in July shortly after the column was published. Reported only last weekend, the request ignited anti-Bush furor.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20031001.shtml

He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered.

Yes, Lola does seem to have a bird's eye view. Most of her unsourced and undocumented contributions go "plop" on the page just like bird droppings.