Kenneth Tomlinson, the outgoing chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, repeatedly came under fire during his tenure for attempting to politicize public broadcasting. Now that he's gone, who is slated to replace him? People even more dedicated to turning NPR and PBS into wings of the Republican Party, of course! Paul Farhi has the story for The Washington Post.

A leading Republican donor and fundraiser was elected chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting yesterday, tightening conservative control over the agency that oversees National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.

Cheryl F. Halpern, a New Jersey lawyer and real estate developer, won approval from the CPB's board. She succeeds a close board ally, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, who stirred controversy earlier this year by contending that public broadcasting favors liberal views. Tomlinson's term as chairman had expired, but he will remain a member of the board.

The board also elected another conservative, Gay Hart Gaines, as its vice chairman. Gaines, an interior decorator by training, was a charter member and a chairman of GOPAC, a Republican fundraising group that then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) used to engineer the GOP takeover of the House in 1994.

With the changes, conservatives with close ties to the Bush administration have assumed control of every important position at the agency, which distributes about $400 million in federal funds to noncommercial radio and TV stations and is supposed to act as a buffer against outside political influence.

Do not be confused; this is a scorched earth policy as Republicans try to establish firm control over all levels of bureaucracy. It apparently is not enough that the Wall Street Journal's extremely conservative editorial board has its own show on PBS, as does former Nixon advisor John McLaughlin (who is joined by an overwhelmingly conservative panely) and the certainly-not-liberal Fareed Zakaria. No, some Republicans continue to try to rid public broadcasting of anything that deviates from the company line. It will certainly be interesting to see the public reaction if/when these two new leaders of the CPB make their presence felt.