As if the Iraq quagmire (mobile-phone licensing mystery aside) and the jobless recovery have not done enough to take the wind out of the administration’s sails, now comes an unpatriotic pitch by Bush telemarketers with enough punch to sink the ship.
The White House leak controversy comes as Bush appointees beat their chests about protecting citizens from unwanted calls at dinner time and as political operatives-left and right-gear up for the 2004 campaign season.
The real telemarketing pros reside in the political establishment. Political parties-in and out of power alike-are big on soliciting dollars, votes and support of all kinds. And they’re darn good at it.
In that spirit, after hearing about Bush administration activities surrounding a Commerce Department reorganization plan announced earlier this year, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request to learn more.
Rounding up industry support for administration policies is nothing new, though there is a line that if crossed constitutes illegal government lobbying.
FOIA documents revealed Commerce officials pursued an industry outreach strategy. Oddly absent in the documents is tangible evidence of communications or contacts between Commerce Department officials and industry lobbyists on a Bush plan to roll the National Telecommunications and Information Administration into the Technology Administration. How can there be industry outreach without phone calls, e-mails, face-to-face contacts, etc.? It doesn’t add up.
Connie Correll, an aide to TA chief Phillip Bond, said her outreach was limited to a heads-up e-mail to industry lobbyists the day before Commerce Secretary Don Evans announced the reorganization plan Feb. 13. The wireless industry and some key lawmakers remain lukewarm to the idea. Meantime, time is running short in Congress.
Correll and Bond were joined in industry outreach by then-NTIA head Nancy Victory and then-NTIA Deputy Administrator Michael Gallagher. Gallagher has since been nominated by Bush to head the agency Victory left in August under curious circumstances.
One FOIA document is a Commerce reorganization talking-points paper. In the middle of the page, below the talking points, is written “Supporters thus far: AeA, ITI, ITAA, BSA, CSPP, TechNet, SBC, USTA, Verisign, AT&T.” Twenty three other entries on the page are blacked out. The reason? Those portions are considered “predecisional and antecedent to the adoption of an agency policy.”
That suggests industry supporters listed on the talking-points paper-and possibly others that were blacked out-may have been lined up before the Commerce Department publicly announced the reorganization plan Feb. 13.
How in the world might that have happened?
