3rd Pundit revealed as being on Bush Admin's payroll.

[wasteofo2]

#1: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-06-williams-whitehouse_x.htm

I'm sure you're all aware of the first guy, Armstrong Williams, who got nearly a quarter of a million dollars to propagandize for the "No Child Left Behind" policy. He said that there were many others like him, but Conservatives scoffed at the notion, taking the same "it's only the work of a few bad apples," approach that they did with Abu Gharib. For a few weeks, you might have believed them, until...

#2: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36545-2005Jan25.html

The next paid propagandist was Maggie Gallagher, a decidedly cheaper buy-off, who only got about $21 thousand to promote Bush's marriage initiative policy. This story broke (as far as I can tell) on January 25.

In 2002, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher repeatedly defended President Bush's push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families[...]

But Gallagher failed to mention that she had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president's proposal. Her work under the contract, which ran from January through October 2002, included drafting a magazine article for the HHS official overseeing the initiative, writing brochures for the program and conducting a briefing for department officials.

"Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it?" Gallagher said yesterday. "I don't know. You tell me." She said she would have "been happy to tell anyone who called me" about the contract but that "frankly, it never occurred to me" to disclose it.

*Just then!*

[January 27] WASHINGTON -- U.S. President George W. Bush vowed yesterday that his administration will stop paying newspaper columnists and pundits to back its policies after the second right-wing commentator in a month acknowledged receiving a contract from a government agency to help promote one of its policies.

"All our cabinet secretaries must realize that we will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda," Mr. Bush told reporters. "Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its two feet."

Good job Mr. President, taking a stand against corruption in your administration, very nice. Even though it took you 1 too many propaganda scandals to come out with this statement, it's still a nice gesture.

So things are looking good, until *Two Days Later!*

WASHINGTON, Jan.28 - The Bush administration acknowledged on Friday that it it had paid a third Conservative comentator, and at least two departments said they were conducting internal inquiries to see if other journalists were under government contract.

The Department of Health and Human Services confirmed having hired Michaerl McManus, who writes a weekly syndicated column and is director of a nonprofit group called Marriage Savers. Mr. McManus was paid $10,000 to help train counselors about marriage, an arrangement fist reported in USA Today, but officials said he was paid for his expertise rather than to write columns supporting administration policies.

I'm sure when any reasonable person looks at this situation, they'll see there is absolutely no conflict of interests between being paid by an administration and writing political columns about said administration's policies if you don't publicly announce that you were being paid to write those articles. So long as your "official" reason for being paid was [/i]not[/i] to write articles supporting policies and proposals that you are being paid to participate in, then there is clearly no conflict of interests at all.

 

[Gokul43201]

Waste, you're wasting your breath. People know all this (okay, I'd only read and heard about the first one..I'm a little out of the loop right now), but will still go ahead and support this administration wholeheartedly.

It's just the most baffling and tragic phenomenon ever !

 

[R0man]

It's disturbing to see that yet another pundit has been revealed to be on the payroll of the Bush administration. This not only calls into question the integrity of these individuals, but also raises concerns about the administration's use of taxpayer money to push their agenda through media manipulation. It's a blatant disregard for journalistic ethics and a disservice to the American people who rely on unbiased and accurate information from the media. It's reassuring to see that the President has finally taken a stand against this corrupt practice, but it's concerning that it took multiple scandals for this action to be taken. This is another example of the lack of transparency and accountability in the Bush administration, and it's important for the public to continue to demand honesty and integrity from our leaders.