Hopefully this will be the last word on this issue

The story regarding former Air America CEO Evan Cohen and the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club has been floating around the RW blogs and RW media sources for a couple weeks or so. Never mind Karl Rove. Forget Halliburton. Bush's rapidly sinking approval numbers? Irrelevant. His endless vacations? Means nothing.

Interesting to note that they'll try to burn anyone to the left of them at the stake for 'taking money from children', but disregard the fact that their party has been doing just that this whole decade. Of course, they'll never admit it.

But heaven forbid Air America's former CEO (who, by the way, is a former GOP operative) gets caught up in some sort of suspected funds misplacement controversy!

If this is all they've got for scandal, they're in for a rough four years.

I hesitated to post anything about it here, seeing as it was merely neocon blogger nonsense. But this will (hopefully) be the first and last mention of this on this site. The following is a statement from Air America, which can be found here:

Statement:

If the allegations of mismanagement and corruption at Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club are true, it is absolutely disgraceful.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal and the HBO Documentary, Left of the Dial‚ the company that the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club officials gave money to, Progress Media, has been defunct since May 2004. That company was run at the time by Evan Cohen who has not had any involvement in Air America Radio since May 2004.

The current owners of Air America Radio have no obligation to Progress Media's business activities. We are very disturbed that Air America Radio's good name could be associated with a reduction in services for young people, which is why we agreed months ago to fully compensate the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club as a result of this transaction.

We at Air America Radio strongly believe in the mission of Boys and Girls Clubs to provide a safe and nurturing place for young people to learn and grow. As a result, we recently allowed the same club, Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, to use our name in a fundraising effort for a summer camp for children in their community.

The funding for Camp Air America was raised and collected entirely by the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, and Air America promoted the camp on air and urged support for it. A link on our web site sent those interested in contributing to the camp to the Gloria Wise web site. Regrettably, the camp did not survive the closure of the Gloria Wise organization. We have offered any individuals who contributed to the camp as a result of Air America's promotion the option of a refund paid for by Air America Radio and the Club offered the alternative option of having their donation redirected to Kip's Bay Boys and Girls Club.