I’m starting to get really burned out by ranting about the shenanigans of this administration. I never thought there would be daily outrages from the Bush regime, much less multiple daily outrages. And four more years of this? I have to believe that by the time he leaves office, everyone — even his supporters — will be glad to see the back of this jackass.
Among the things I haven’t had the energy to comment on is the revelation that the administration paid a “journalist” $240,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind Act; another bit of Bush excrement that I hope is disposed of soon. ($240 thousand could have helped a lot of students struggling to learn rather than just memorize what’s on a NCLB test.)
Anyway. Here’s a good quote that sums up well:
Alex Jones, director of Harvard’s Shorenstein media center, said he is “disgusted” by what he called “the worst kind of fakery and flackery” on Williams’s part. “It’s propaganda masquerading as news, paid by government, truly a recipe from hell,” he said. “It would make any thinking person hearing any pundit speak want to say, ‘Okay, how much did they pay you to say that?’ ” Jones said the contract also shows that “the Bush administration neither understands nor respects the idea of an independent media.”
In an editorial the Washington Post points out:
Covert propaganda is more than unethical; it is against the law for taxpayer dollars to be used “for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States,” unless approved by Congress. Congress should investigate, as this administration does not seem to understand the lines it has crossed.
