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Monday, January 10, 2005

Who else is taking payola to shill for the Bush Administration?
Posted by Jill | 1:42 PM

According to David Corn, Armstrong Williams may not be the only one taking money from Bushco to flack the Administration's programs:

I had the guilty pleasure of being able to go on Fox News this weekend and join the pile-on atop Armstrong Williams. In leaping upon the scandal-struck rightwing commentator, I was accompanied by Tony Snow and Linda Chavez. But the real treat came when I encountered Williams in the green room after the show. He acknowledged he had messed up, but he told me he was not the only conservative pundit who has taken money from the Bush gang. He would not, however, reveal names.

[snip]

I asked if Williams had yet been conducted by the inspector general at the Education Department, the agency that had awarded the contract that supplied him $241,000 for promoting the NCLB measure within the African-American community. Representative George Miller, the ranking Democrat on the education committee, and other House Democrats had already called for an investigation. Why should the IG contact me? Williams replied, noting he had been merely a subcontractor. Any thorough investigation, I remarked, would include questioning the subcontractor. He scratched his head. "Funny," he said. "I thought this [contract] was a blessing at the time."

And then Williams violated a PR rule: he got off-point. "This happens all the time," he told me. "There are others." Really? I said. Other conservative commentators accept money from the Bush administration? I asked Williams for names. "I'm not going to defend myself that way," he said. The issue right now, he explained, was his own mistake. Well, I said, what if I call you up in a few weeks, after this blows over, and then ask you? No, he said.

Does Williams really know something about other rightwing pundits? Or was he only trying to minimize his own screw-up with a momentary embrace of a trumped-up everybody-does-it defense? I could not tell. But if the IG at the Department of Education or any other official questions Williams, I suggest he or she ask what Williams meant by this comment. And if Williams is really sorry for this act of "bad judgment" and for besmirching the profession of rightwing punditry, shouldn't he do what he can to guarantee that those who watch pundits on the cable news networks and read political columnists receive conservative views that are independent and untainted by payoffs from the Bush administration or other political outfits?


Wow. Imagine if the entire Mighty Wurlitzer is on the take from Bushco? The mind reels....

I can't wait to see the hoops the wingnuts will jump through to justify this one.
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