On October 26th, the Washington Post published an article that read in part:
“Gallaudet retained Dickstein Shapiro , a Washington-based law and lobbying firm, to “educate” lawmakers about the situation on campus and lobby on appropriations issues.
“We want to make sure that people on the Hill understand the reality of what’s happening on campus,” said Amy Weiss of Point Blank Public Affairs , who was hired by the university to help with public relations during the crisis.
Gallaudet, like other interest groups and corporations that get caught up in a crisis or are involved in a major transaction, wanted to avoid a situation where some member of Congress gets upset and puts a hold on its federal funding or otherwise gets involved. Federal tax dollars provide nearly 70 percent of the school’s budget, or $104.5 million for fiscal 2006, Weiss said.”
Notice the bold font up there? “. . .where some member of Congress gets upset. . .or otherwise gets involved.”
Is it just me or is I King Jordan deathly afraid of seeing a repeat of what the chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance sent to the Board of American University last year in regards to the disgraceful resignation of American University President Benjamin Ladner, who allegedly abused his position for monetary gain?
Want to see what American University was asked to provide?
http://finance.senate.gov/press/Gpress/2005/prg102805.pdf
I assure you, it is definitely worth reading to see just what can happen if the Chair of the Senate Finance Committee gets it in his head to take a look into Gallaudet’s finances.
I’d imagine Paul Kelly’s head would explode the moment he read what was expected from Gallaudet by Congress.
Unfortunately, as the Washington Post article shows, IKJ and Point Blank Public Affairs, the PR consulting firm hired by the administration, was way ahead of us in getting his message out to them before we did.
It was basically a pre-emptive strike on Congress before any constituents (i.e. us) could make any reasonable comments that would be well-recieved by our elected representatives.
You have to admire their brazen tactics. . .
“The deafies are too slow to realize they can exert some influence on Congress so we’ll just “educate” Congress about why the deafies are so wrong about Gallaudet and make sure that Congress doesn’t take the deafies’ comments seriously because we’ll tell Congress the protestors are all just self-centered, anti-Hearing, dysfunctional, and isolated trouble-makers.”
. . .Yeah, I can imagine Amy Weiss of Point Blank Public Affairs making such a comment in the administration’s planning sessions.
Washington Post article link here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/25/AR2006102501793.html
November 9, 2006 at 12:33 pm
interesting thoughts, Rob! I’d love to see Gallaudet have to provide all this information too, and in ONE month, like AU had to!
November 9, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Wow, it is the same KPMG company that audits Gallaudet finances. The BoT member is a former employee of that firm.
IKJ is probably much worse than the former AU persident. It will be interesting when he faces the senate’s inquiry.
November 9, 2006 at 2:38 pm
Greg: NO ONE in Congress has brought up a review of Gallaudet. What was posted shows what COULD happen but unfortunately, IKJ and his lobbyists already got to our elected representatives.
November 9, 2006 at 3:03 pm
The Congress got involved with the AU situation for the tax evasion when the AU Board members found the finance abuses by the president.
Sure, the Congress probably will do same thing with Gallaudet, they will not do anything till the Gally BoT opens an audit investigation and finds anything suspectible. If Gally BoT or interim president avoid starting the investigation, IKJ would win unless you can find Paul Kelly’s shredded papers and put them together
November 10, 2006 at 3:38 am
Exactly my thinking. I read somewhere that WoPo inquired about Gallaudet’s finances and was looking into it, last may. What if anything will come out of it is anyone’s guess.