Toledo Blade reports on '04 machinations to save Bush, Voinovich, etc.

[roseBudd]

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060813/NEWS24/608130338/-1/NEWS

BWC tried to keep $215M loss under wraps prior to '04 vote
Documents reflect director's concern about possible 'leak'

COLUMBUS - Less than a week before the 2004 presidential election, Jim Conrad, then head of the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, took steps to ensure that a $215 million investment loss in an offshore hedge-fund would not become public, documents obtained by The Blade show.

On Oct. 27, 2004 - just six days before President Bush was re-elected after narrowly winning Ohio - Mr. Conrad expressed his concern about a potential "leak" of the losses in an e-mail to John Annarino, then the bureau's chief legal counsel and ethics officer. In the e-mail, Mr. Conrad advised how Mr. Annarino and James McLean, then the bureau's investment director, should manage the agency's investment staff to keep the potentially explosive losses under wraps.<snip>

On Sept. 27, 2004, Mr. Conrad, the bureau's administrator-CEO, was giving a speech in Cincinnati when he received a call from Ms. Kielmeyer, then the bureau's chief operating officer. She told Mr. Conrad that an employee had told her about an investment gone bad. That evening, Mr. McLean told Mr. Conrad in a conference call that when he wanted to "tighten the screws" on MDL, Gasper had told him that Mr. Conrad had given permission to "give MDL a break.''<snip> Mr. McLean said he was instructed by Mr. Annarino "to make sure that the staff was kept content and happy so that they would not reveal any information on MDL."<snip> "Keeping a lid on the MDL losses was not something that I simply assumed Mr. Annarino wanted; it was a straightforward mandate," Mr. McLean wrote. "The Bureau did not want any information on MDL to get out and I was to cooperate with that mandate."<snip>

[WhiteTara]

1. Go Toledo Blade!

Great Paper and what a scandal. I hope they push this just as hard as the Ney and Noe stories.

[Kurovski]

2. K&R(nt)

[mod mom]

3. I thought the reason the Blade did not receive a Pullitzer for this story

was because Blade staffers knowingly held the story until after the election. Guess I need to do a little research to refresh my memory.

[mod mom]

4. Here is a link to the Pullitzer controversy.

5.24.2006
Blade Writer George Tanber Admits Pulitzer Letter




(Toledo, OH) Editor and Publisher broke a story this afternoon about longtime Toledo Blade reporter George Tanber, who apparently admitted writing the infamous eight-page letter to the Pulitzer committee detailing the reasons why the Blade series on Coingate was "tainted."

The Blade reporter told E&P that he was suspended without pay today after informing editors of his involvement in the letter.

Tanber, who provided a copy of his two-page statement to E&P, said that he "did not sign the letter because I wanted the focus to be on the message, not on me. But I did provide an e-mail address to the Pulitzer board to contact me for further information or questions. No one did."

Tanber said that his decision to come forward was based on his desire to prevent innocent employees from being falsely accused.




mike.blogspot.com/2006/05/blade-writer-george-tanber-admits.html

[Yellow Horse]

5. K & R -- Don't forget OHIO

:grr:

[democraticinsurgent]

6. Buried in the Columbus Dispatch

True to their neo-con bias the Dispatch has buried the story in the back of today's (Monday) Metro section. And their version is a very short piece.