BBG Watch Commentary
Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) member, former U.S. Ambassador to Poland Victor Ashe, may soon leave his BBG post if the U.S. Senate confirms former U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker to replace him on the bipartisan board in charge of U.S. international broadcasting as requested by the White House. The Senate may vote soon on Crocker’s nomination and nominations of two other new BBG members, Jeff Shell, president of NBCUniversal International, who would become the next BBG Chairman, and Matt Armstrong, a former Executive Director of the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. All three nominees are highly qualified to serve on the board.
But as John O’Sullivan, a political writer and journalist who served as a special adviser to Margaret Thatcher, reports in The Corner section of National Review Online, Victor Ashe’s expected departure from the board may be described as a bureaucratic assassination for his defense of good management and transparency at the Broadcasting Board of Governors.
“…why should the Senate ratify such an obvious stitch-up, whoever was responsible, when they can put a hold on the nominations for later consideration. That decision will be made today. And if the nominations go ahead over Ashe’s dead body, there may be more than one corpse in the Senate cloakroom because a lot of people will want to know why.”
The Corpse in the Senate Cloakroom, by John O’Sullivan, The Corner, National Review Online, July 28, 2013.