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• n  favoritism shown to friends and associates (as by appointing them to positions without regard for their qualifications)

• At issue is whether the two men benefited during their business careers from the same kind of cronyism and slippery accounting that the Administration is now publicly condemning.
• Democrats, meanwhile, immediately fired off statements to the press calling the move classic cronyism.
• A benign cronyism is more or less presumed, with old friends and big donors getting comfortable positions and impressive titles, and with few real consequences for the nation.

News & Articles

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• Greece Shutters Entire Public Broadcasting Network
  The Greek government has abruptly shut down the country's public broadcaster, ERT, and will lay off most of its staff of more than 2,600 people. The government is trying to show Greece's creditors that it can cut costs by even closing down "sacred cows" such as ERT, which the ruling New Democracy party claims is rife with corruption and cronyism. There's wide speculation that closing down ERT ...
  June 12, 2013 - NPR
• Coach Mike debacle a ‘teaching moment’
  Coach Mike debacle a ‘teaching moment’ by Christopher Smart The Salt Lake Tribune Published Jun 9, 2013 04:23PM MDT A collision of values at Salt Lake City Hall last week left many shaking their heads after their sense of community was smashed by a process designed to keep government free of cronyism. The victims of the train wreck were Mike Martines and the community built around Coach Mike’s ...
  June 9, 2013 - The Salt Lake Tribune

Quotes

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• Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington Post
  Grab your buckets, grab your brooms,Clinton said. "We're going to have to do a clean sweep because there has been a culture of cronyism, corruption and incompetence."
• Bill Clinton in Seattle Times
  George W. Bush's administration's response to the hurricane sent a message that "cronyism is more important than competence," Bill Clinton said, referring to the slow response under former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael...
• John McCain in Bloomberg
  McCain called the situation "an example of cronyism, special interest, lobbyists, a quasi-governmental organization where the executives were making hundreds of, some billion dollars, a year while things were going downhill."