Justice Department Official Gives $500,000 Anti-Crime Grant To Well-Connected Group For Golf Lessons

What’s a great way to combat juvenile crime? Why, give the kids golf lessons.

Instead of having kids get t-ed off and break the law on the street or in gangs, teach them how to be really t-ed off so they can play the sport at their own country clubs. (Don’t ALL kids belong to country clubs?).

No, this is NOT an Andy Borowitz news satire. ABC investigative reporters Murray Waas, Brian Ross and Anna Schecter report that a $500,000 anti-crime grant was given to a well-connected group whose luminaries just happen to include George Bush — the present President’s father:

A senior Justice Department official says a $500,000 federal grant to the World Golf Foundation is an appropriate use of money designed to deal with juvenile crime in America.

“We need something really attractive to engage the gangs and the street kids, golf is the hook,” said J. Robert Flores, the administrator of the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

The Justice Department, in a decision by Flores, gave the money to the World Golf Foundation’s First Tee program, even though Justice Department staffers had rated the program 47th on a list of 104 applicants. The allegations were first reported earlier this year by the trade journal Youth Today.

“I don’t know why people insist on denigrating it, it’s a sound program,” Flores told ABC News.

Perhaps its because in a time of scarce money when the government is run by an administration that has caused all kinds of cutbacks in services due to the economy, the Justice Department gave the half a million dollars to save the country’s youth via golf by passing over a host of other programs.

And this allegation fits in with pattern we’ve seen in so many other aspects of this administration: ignoring governments staffers who urge a course of action based on non-political needs and instead opting to help its friends or act upon its political and other biases. The Bush administration’s theme song should be “With A Little Help From My Friends…”

Current and former Justice Department employees allege that Flores ignored the staff rankings in favor of programs that had political, social or religious connections to the Bush White House.

The honorary chairman of the First Tee program is former President George Bush. On a videotape presentation, the former President Bush praised the program for “serving others and building character and building values.”

The director of the golf program, Joe Louis BarrowJr., said the program would help teach inner city children because “golf is a game where values such as honesty, integrity and sportsmanship are essential.”

See? It’s the perfect answer to the nation’s juvenile crime problem…

The golf program grant is one of a number of Justice Department grants now coming under scrutiny by a Congressional committee which will hold hearings next week.

A key witness will be a former employee of Flores’ office, Scott Peterson, who says the grants were awarded based more on politics than merit.

“This is cronyism, this is waste, fraud and abuse,” Peterson told ABC News in an interview aired on Nightline Monday night.

Cronyism from the Bush administration? Critics are just being picky and it’s a coincidence that the former President Bush is on the panel.

Critics will eat their words when they see juvenile halls throughout the country lay off staff and Crips and Bloods argue over the latest PGA news rather than colors at their country clubs.