Prostitutes On Parade

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. [...]

"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.

So this is the second such disclosure. How many more to come? And how many were paid to pimp the Bush Administration's war in Iraq? Time will tell.

But in the meanwhile, if you need another reason to refuse to pay your Federal Income Taxes, try this one on for size: your tax dollars are being used to propagandise yourself.

Update, 7/27/05: The buck stops...somewhere else:

And as fresh evidence surfaced this week of the Bush administration's use of taxpayer dollars to promote its policies in the news media, the president admonished his Cabinet secretaries not to pay columnists to advance his agenda.

"Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet," he said, adding that he expects Cabinet secretaries "make sure that that practice doesn't go forward."

Also, it looks like Bush needs to get all DARPA on his own ass, before worrying about retrieving "total information" regarding this country's citizens:

The president also said the White House had been unaware that the Education Department paid commentator and columnist Armstrong Williams $240,000 to plug its policies. That contract became known two weeks ago.

Posted by Eddie Tews at January 26, 2005 02:39 PM