Day 12 and Counting

Michelle Malkin has a link to the latest story from the NY Post about the Air America scandal:

August 9, 2005 -- AL Franken says 20,000 poor kids and old people weren't the only victims of an exec who allegedly arranged a Bronx charity's mega-buck "loan" to Air America.

"About three weeks into the life of Air America, I became an involuntary investor — I stopped being paid," Franken told listeners yesterday on WLIB (1190 AM).

To those who are unfamiliar with Franken's work on his radio program (and judging from the ratings, I'd say that's about everyone), I believe that this is a classic Franken attempt at a "joke". I know that it's hard to recognize on account of it lacking any humor whatsoever, but radio personalities aren't given ratings like Franken's, they earn them. Of course, I could be wrong, but I've voluntarily subjected myself to enough Franken to know that he probably thought this statement would provide levity to the moment.

The Post has some other information in here, and it's difficult to determine whether Franken re-iterated these things on the air yesterday, or whether they are recapitulations of old quotes:

"I think [Cohen] was robbing Peter to pay Paul," Franken said, adding that the network's current owners, Piquant LLC, did some "forensic accounting" and learned about the defaulted loan.

Franken said Piquant didn't legally have to pay back the loan, "but we morally do, so they started to make arrangements to pay it back.

As we have covered in detail before, both of these statements have now been called into serious question by the DOI - which leads us to ask why Franken keeps repeating them. Most especially, we remain curious as to why, if Piquant does not legally have to repay the loan, the DOI is involved in the repayment process. I would think that if someone took me to court over some money, and it was determined that I had no legal obligation to repay the money, but I decided to go ahead and do it anyway out of the goodness of my heart, the court would not get involved in how I repay the money I don't legally owe. Of course, I've never been dragged into court for defrauding a charity of close to a million dollars, so I could be way off base, here.

In the meantime, we continue our countdown to the day that the New York Times will first notice this story, in any shape, form or fashion. Yesterday I predicted that the NYTimes would not notice the story until Air America finally folded up, and that they would be forced to report the conclusion of a story they had not covered. Every day they wait seems to be another day closer to that ignominious day. So what is the New York Times interested in today?

On the front page, we have "Christian Groups Press Bush on North Korea" and a nice article about GM in China. Zero about the erstwhile demise of a New York charity at the hands of a liberal media (sorry for the redundancy) outlet.

On the editorials page, the Times is covering a single woman who is camping out in Crawford protesting the war, we've got Netanyahu bashing and a eulogy for Jennings, along with a cutting edge op-ed about daylight savings time and the mandatory reminder of just how bad Bush is doing. Sadly, no room for anything about Air America. Nothing new in the local opinion page.

Given the paper's breathless coverage of Air America's startup, their silence in the face of its demise is deafening.

UPDATE: Brainster's blog has got the audio of this, and upon review, I'm not so sure Franken was making a joke about not being paid, given that the other person on the audio, whose sole purpose seemed to be to laugh so folks would know when Franken was making a joke, did not laugh at that. He also made several other questionable statements, and seemed to imply that Air America jumped right on the ball to repay Gloria Wise - when in fact, the agreement to repay was not even made for a year after the loan was discovered (by Franken's own admission). Franken also repeats the claim (since disputed by the DOI) that the investigation halted the repayment of the loan. So I guess, what's new about this is, they are repeating the same lies, just to their own listeners this time.

Welcome, Michelle Malkin readers!

 

Comments

[peapies]

Your post yesterday detailing the catch 22 for the NYTimes was exactly what I had been thinking...and what is astonishing is that (among others) now that AL Franken himself is coveing it AND Eliot is investigating, these present no angle to report? Not even a spin job story? It is not only blatant it is actally quite irresponsible and sorta criminal to the profession of news reporting all together.

[Someguy]

Uh, hey dummies... #1. Franken's "involuntary investor" line was a reference to a joke he's made before. He was just sort of repeating it in passing, hence the lack of a laugh. #2. Even if someone HAD laughed you would have criticized it as "the other person on the audio, whose sole purpose seemed to be to laugh". #3. The other person is his co-host,. #4. Since you've characterized what he's said as "lies", I assume you have some contrary facts or even evidence to back up that accusation. Which I assume you woulda brought up. Which you didn't. Which makes me think you're full of crap. #5. When there's an actual story here, maybe the NYTimes will report it.

[Someguy]

Oh, one more thing-- since you're covering Air America's imminent demise, you might wanna start with the three new affiliates they added yesterday.