Crude Propaganda

    

The official who oversees the federal government's broadcasts to foreign countries directed staff to do personal work and used government resources for his private racehorse operation, State Department investigators conclude in a new report.

Kenneth Tomlinson, a Bush appointee who chairs the Broadcasting Board of Governors, also double-billed the board for his own work, according to the report released Tuesday.

The new allegations come after Tomlinson was forced to resign last year as head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting amid revelations of impropriety there.

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The Bush administration's campaign to build support in the Middle East and other areas of the Islamic world have already been derided as crude propaganda by some critics.

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Tomlinson himself became the focus of unwelcome publicity last year amid allegations that he broke federal law, along with internal rules and ethics codes, in his efforts to bring more conservatives into the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

He resigned as chairman of the CPB in November ahead of an internal investigation that showed he worked with the Bush administration officials, including Rove, to find a president for the agency, which is supposed to act as a buffer between Congress and public broadcasting stations.

» Bush appointee in hot water at second agency / Fresh allegations against Tomlinson