‘The American Spectator’: Taking Aim at AmeriCorps

By JENNIFER MOORE

AmeriCorps “operates more like a federal relief program for nightclub comics” than a national-service effort, writes James Bovard in a cover story in The American Spectator (July/August).

Mr. Bovard points to several projects AmeriCorps members helped run, including a drive to collect donated undergarments for a San Diego women’s shelter; an anti-violence program in Buffalo, N.Y., to buy back toy guns from kids; and a puppet show in Lone Pine, Calif., designed to teach young children about the dangers of earthquakes.

The article — adapted from Mr. Bovard’s forthcoming book, Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton-Gore Years — contains a laundry list of complaints about AmeriCorps, including charges of “slipshod accounting,” improper advocacy activities, and inflated accomplishments.

“If AmeriCorps helped at a barn-raising, members would later claim not just to have helped someone build a barn — but swear they also redeemed the person’s self-esteem, gave him a purpose in life, and introduced him to multiculturalism and diversity,” writes Mr. Bovard.

In response, AmeriCorps officials say the article is filled with inaccuracies.

“In his enthusiasm to bash President Clinton and discredit the service of 150,000 young people who have proudly served their country, Bovard consistently gets the facts wrong, uses misleading anecdotes, and abandons other journalistic standards,” says Tara Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Corporation for National Service, which runs AmeriCorps.

She adds: The American Spectator, by deciding to publish the story, “has come dangerously close to revealing itself as a libertarian relief program for shoddy journalism.”