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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: haqihana who wrote (260263)	6/1/2002 1:45:28 PM
From: MSI	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Whistleblowers are the way it starts - they seem to be the only access to the tricky stuff that can be suppressed. That'll drive the panel you mention, and force their noses into the pile ... Whistleblowers can be ignored or dismissed in print media and government as we've seen with the FBI cases can ignore or actively suppress such allegations. But once you scan damning documents into the net, you're off to the races, if you have enough rabid people who care about such things to force the media, and political demand. That's the reason Rumsfeld came out with the $2.3 trillion unaccounted for, to get ahead of whistleblowers. Rumors leading to individuals with consciences disclosing accounting data directly and anonymously, leading to escalating scandal, etc. is a powerful motive for damage control. The next step is for Fitts and the like to keep the pressure on and close the loop, which will take years. That's $8,000 for each of us that was stolen, spent twice, or not spent at all, etc. and should be a major criminal investigation, due to the importance to the taxpayer. Treating something like that as an "accounting error" is a failure of leadership. Unfortunately (or fortunately from the perspective of someone like myself) that probably leads in all sorts of directions. The rot in our government includes equal parts secrecy, crime, lack of public leadership, and public apathy, so the more investigations the more of this rot will be rooted out.