You know, maybe we wouldn’t have such trouble paying for basic services in this country if the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services quit paying media personalities for propaganda. In just the last three weeks, three separate instances of "questionable decisions" and "bad judgement" have come to light:
- The Bush administration has paid more than $250 million to public relations firms to promote their political agenda
- Armstrong Williams, paid $240,000 by the Department of Education to spin No Child Left Behind to minority audiences
- Maggie Gallagher, paid $21,000 by the HHS to promote the Community Healthy Marriage Initiative
- Most recently, columnist Michael McManus, author of the syndicated column Ethics & Religion, was found to have accepted $10,000, also from the HHS, and also to promote codified discrimination
Wow.
So we have the latest guy, who writes a column called Ethics & Religion. Did you see the part about Ethics in that title? Because I don’t think McManus did.
Dr. Wade Horn, the assistant secretary for children and families at HHS, said of the latest two scandals maintains that "HHS was not paying Gallagher and McManus to write about Bush administration initiatives but for their expertise as marriage advocates." Um, they work in the media. AT least a portion of their livelihood comes from writing for the public. When the department paid Gallagher and McManus (covertly, through back channels, and without public disclosure on either side), what exactly did it expect in return? Thanks and have a nice day? No. They expected what anyone would - that those writers and media personalities whom they employed would write in, appear, and propagandize in favor of their contracted programs.
"Thirty years ago if you were a columnist, then you were a full-time employee of a newspaper," continued Horn. "Columnists today are different." But they are still columnists. That hasn’t changed. This government has paid out millions of dollars to columnists and PR firms to peddle their wares. That much is not illegal, and if the Bush administration cannot muster support for their agenda any other way than by paying for it, I suppose it’s within normal and customary practices. But the nondisclosure practiced by both the government and their paid hacks is unethical – and even if no one else in the country recognized that (though many do), a man who purported to be an expert on Ethics should certainly have known.
Horn notes that he and the HHS are investigating to see if they can find any further instances. And that he’s instituting a new policy forbidding the agency from hiring any outside contractor / consultant with any affiliation with the media. Oh, so many problems with this:
- Further instances? As in, we think we might have paid more media people to write us some nice PR, and forgot to tell anyone about it? As in, we don’t think they’ve told anyone, either? Be prepared for more dirty linen before this is over
- "A new policy forbidding…" What? Why is this new? This should have been in place some time ago, along with rules regarding accepting gifts and gratuities and, oh yes, the prohibition against murder. Upstanding organizations don’t pay journalists for good press; and upstanding journalists don’t take bribes.
- Further, there’s a federal appropriations statute prohibiting the use of government funds for covert propaganda (which, given the nondisclosure routinely practiced by all parties, could certainly apply here). Footnote 327 states "No part of any appropriation contained in this Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes not authorized by the Congress." So, unless Congress specifically and explicitly authorized these payments to the administration’s pet media lackies, I think someone has some ‘splainin to do.
Is it a criminal conspiracy? I don’t know, but it surely does smack of corrupt, unprincipled, unethical practices being seen as de rigeur by our President, his administration, and all of their friends.
And this is the guy, the party, the oh-so-belabored constituency, who claim to have won the recent election on "moral values." What were those again? Remind me, because I’m not sure there are many in this administration, or among their various cronies, who actually understand the meaning of the term.
