Paging Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News, and the Fleecing of America Staff

Higher Ed Watch reported on February 1 that the Department of Education has aggressively collected small, inadvertent Impact Aid overpayments to poorly financed public schools serving Native Americans, but forgiven hundreds of millions of dollars in illegally claimed payments to big student loan banks. Meet a collaborator in inconsistency: NBC News.

NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw was outraged a few years ago when two hapless criminals who worked at the Department of Education attempted to buy a Corvette with Impact Aid funds intended for a low-income South Dakota school. The car dealer became suspicious, the plot was foiled, and the perpetrators faced prison time. Good. Public officials ripping off poor kids usually deserve prison time.

NBC News featured the Corvette caper story on its "Fleecing of America" segment and gave then-Education Secretary Rod Paige national air time to expound about how nothing like that would ever happen in his Administration. Nooo. Of course as Paige spoke, Nelnet and other big lenders were fleecing taxpayers for billions in the illegal 9.5 percent guaranteed loan scam. Last week, Paiges successor, Secretary Margaret Spellings cut off future improper 9.5 percent loan claims, but left Nelnet the number one contributor to the National Republican Campaign Committee -- with at least $278 million that she promised not collect. Question for NBC News: how many Corvettes will $278 million buy?

NBC News gave Secretary Paige a platform to promise Americans a "model of accountability." It seems to us that it is time for another segment of "The Fleecing of America," or perhaps "Where Are They Now?" Think of the TV images: poor schools on Indian reservations, criminals behind bars, college kids paying for school books, and $278 million in booty, expressed in suitcases of cash, or perhaps a helicopter camera shot of a few acres of thousands of Corvettes.