Of course the GOP Point-Talkers don't want a "fishing expedition" into the Bush regime--you'd have to seal the fish up in toxic-waste containers

This little AP pickup, tucked away on page A3 of the Washington Post, almost calls for no additional comment.

Let's just pause, though, to recall the shouts and murmurs of Republican Talking Point-ish outrage vented in response to the prospect of congressional subpoenas into the Purge-Gate mess. "A fishing expedition!" yawped the rote-talking heads in unison.

In fact, of course, Senator Leahy and Representative Waxman and their various and sundry colleagues are looking for real answers to specific questions--though goodness only knows what horrors they'll uncover if the White House and its minions are unable to adequately purge whatever materials they're forced to turn over. Because that, of course, is the ugly bottom-line truth of this regime: It has been, in every dimension and specification, a tissue of lies, corruption, and filth.

Program's Creator Is Hired to Assess It

Associated Press
Sunday, April 1, 2007; A03

The government contractor that set up a billion-dollar-a-year federal reading program for the Education Department and failed, according to the department's inspector general, to keep it free of conflicts of interest is one of the companies now evaluating the program.

Reading First, part of President Bush's signature No Child Left Behind education law, provides intense reading help to low-income children in the early elementary grades. RMC Research Corp. was hired to establish and implement the program starting in 2002, under three contracts worth about $40 million.

Recently, the Education Department's inspector general reported that RMC failed to keep the program free of conflicts of interest. For example, RMC did not screen subcontractors for relationships with publishers of reading programs.

Now, Reading First is in the midst of a congressionally mandated evaluation under a 2003 contract with a team that includes RMC, based in Portsmouth, N.H.

Lawmakers who have been investigating the Reading First program criticized the connection.

"If it's true that RMC was also hired to evaluate the effectiveness of the very program it was hired to help implement, then the conflict of interest could not be any clearer," Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House education committee, said Friday.

"It's a classic case of the fox guarding the chicken coop," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who chairs the Senate education committee.

The inspector general found that federal officials intervened to influence state and local decisions about reading programs, a potential violation of the law.

RMC did not return calls seeking comment. Nor did Abt Associates, a contractor based in Cambridge, Mass., that hired RMC as a subcontractor.