Kevin, What's The Frequency?

Is FCC head trip Kevin Martin hearing Dan Rather voices? LA Times There's just something unsettling about this guy that I can't put my finger on.

I'm not a big fan of White House political appointees. In Martin's case he's a Republican rah-rah cheerleader recipient of political plums from the George Bush machine. Martin was on the Bush/Cheney campaign, transition team, WH special assistant, and rewarded with an FCC seat in 2001 and chairman in 2005. Martin's wife works in the Bush White House. Double dipping on the taxpayer's dime, eh? His latest scam is regulating cable TV. Videonuze

I have intimate knowledge of these things. In a previous incarnation I was a WH political appointee. I have never seen such incompetent boobs in important jobs. Case in point: the clueless Bruce Gelb was appointed to head USIA - United States Information Agency - now folded into the State Department. Voice Of America was part of USIA. What were Gelb's credentials? His dad founded Clairol (HQ in Stamford, Connecticut). The privileged New Yorker inherited Clairol and while president forked over big bucks to Dubya's dad's campaign. What's more, Gelb is a Yalie and a member of the secret Skull & Crossbones just like the Bushies. It's hard to believe Gelb was as dense as he was given he's also got a degree from Harvard business school.

Gelb was such a disaster at USIA that Bush kicked him upstairs as ambassador to Belgium where he was really out of his league.

I wrote a 1991 2,000-word piece about my political appointee experience. To wit: "I got a little office next to the director of public liaison, Frank Johnson. Johnson landed at USIA because then Postmaster General Preston Tisch (a friend of Gelb's) wanted Johnson to move on. Johnson, a short, balding manin his late 60s, had a Pillsbury doughboy body. His spongy hands and flushed, oversized face were covered with liver spots. An asthmatic, his nearly lipless mouth opened every few seconds like a gasping fish. He looked like he was going to die any minute. As he talked the opening and closing of his mouth reminded me of Howdy Doody.

He became universally despised at the agency for his incompetence and Napoleonic airs. Short man's syndrome. Another short man, Ted Koppel, was his downfall.

Koppel's producers wanted an interview with Bruce Gelb for a piece they claimed was on "global communications." Johnson, blinded by big time dazzle, was snared by the old trick, never tell 'em what you REALLY want. As a former network radio anchor and TV news journalist, I saw what Koppel was doing, wrote every nasty question I thought he'd ask, and gave my list to Johnson. Johnson, still starry-eyed, ignored me and did nothing to prepare Gelg for the hammering I'd predicted he'd get from Koppel.

The piece was a disaster. Gelb came across as a global naif. And his famous line, "We're the gatekeeper to the world," drew cringes and snickers from Washington's foreign policy hands and journalists. It was the talk of the agency. USIA's deputy director lamely offered "they [Koppel] almost didn't lay a glove on us." More like a sledgehammer.

That was the beginning of the end for Johnson. And Gelb, too. Gelb and VOA Director Dick Carlson [Tucker Carlson's dad] got into a public turf wrar. The White House made Gelb ambassador to Belgium and banished Carlson to the Seychelles [Carlson went on to head the Corporation for Public Broadcasting].
Gelb appeared obsessed with women's hair. At USIA's Christmas party Gelb approached me asking "Have you done something different to your hair?" Stunned, I replied, "No I haven't done a thing." A few minutes later he returned. "Your hair looks different. Are you sure you haven't done anything to your hair?" Uh uh. I'll be damned if he didn't come back a THIRD time asking the same question. Maybe I should have said "Only my hairdreser knows for sure."

There's more where that came from. My friend Jim Bohannon harped on me again to write a book. Who'd be interested, I implored Jim? Let's just put it this way. If I really wrote the story of my life like Ted Kennedy's NOT going to do for that obscene $8 mil advance, I'd have to apply for real to the feds' Witness Protection Program.