OUR GOV’T OF TEMPS
SUPPOSE I told you there was a $600 million business that hasn’t had a CEO for 16 months, and efforts to appoint one have been stymied in Washington. Crazy, but that’s what it’s like when the business is a branch of the federal government, given today’s gridlock.
The organization is the US Agency for Global Media, formerly the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Its mission is to support freedom and democracy, especially in undemocratic countries that suppress freedom, and the agencies under its umbrella include the Voice of America. In all, the USAGM reaches 350 million viewers, listeners and users a week, nearly as many as the BBC World Service.
The VOA began offering its services in a pre-wired and undemocratic world where many countries suppressed the flow of information. It’s a different world now, and the availability of the Web and the ubiquity of CNN has led some to wonder whether the US government should be in the news business.
There are also a good many countries, especially in the former Soviet world, that have a free press today.
But that doesn’t mean the agency isn’t still important.
First, we’re seeing a democratic decline across the world, in which formerly democratic countries — Turkey or Russia, for instance — dictator up. We might like to think that democracy and freedom are default positions, but if you think about world history, you realize it’s just the opposite.
Second, it’s wrong to think wired
countries offer a fully free flow of information. China is showing how the Internet is compatible with the most sophisticated instruments of thought control.
Third, media companies are forprofit entities and don’t profit from pushing democracy. Companies like Google and Apple are happy to censor information in China as a condition for reaching that market.
So there’s a role for the US government, which makes the squabble over who’s to head the USAGM so frustrating. The nominee is a great documentary producer, Michael Pack, and right now he’s in limbo because of congressional inaction.
Pack’s done wonderful TV bios of George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, and no one could find the slightest fault with any of his films. If you have a chance, watch Pack’s “The Last 600 Meters,” about the Battles of Najaf and Fallujah in 2004; it’s perhaps the best film about the experience of modern warfare.
Sixteen months after he was nominated, Pack is still waiting for a confirmation hearing from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In the last Congress, the chairman, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), quarreled with President Trump and didn’t want to confirm his nominee.
The new chairman, Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho), won’t hold hearings until the ranking minority member, Bob Menendez, meets with Pack. But Menendez refuses to meet the nominee. So Risch has effectively given the Democrats a veto on the nomination.
That might be comical if the stakes were lower, and if the story hadn’t been repeated in so many government agencies. Trump is being faulted for letting the government be run by so many acting directors, but the fault lies with Congress for blocking Trump’s picks to embarrass him and keep Obama holdovers in charge.
In the past, both parties have held up nominees. What’s different today is the across-the-board effort to prevent a democratically elected government from governing.
This began to change in April, when Senate Republicans used the “nuclear option” to get over the filibuster and break the logjam. Things still grind on slowly, however, and the rule change doesn’t help people like Pack whose nomination is held up at the committee stage.
So here we are, 2 ½ years into Trump’s presidency, and we’ve got a government of temps. Critical departments like Homeland Security, ICE and FEMA are headed by acting directors. And consider: If the president nominated you today to a position that needed Senate confirmation, would you want to put your life on hold for what could be the last 18 months of this administration?