Payola and Propaganda

simbaud.blogspot.com :

"In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness."

--Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)

"Payola", There is a crisis, but it isn't Social Security, it's government sponsored propaganda. It first manifested itself with Armstrong Williams.

www.usatoday.com :

Education Dept. paid commentator to promote law By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.Williams on being paid to boost NCLB: "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in.". The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

It caused quite storm. Following quickly on the heels of this came a revelation of a 3rd tier payola-playa, Maggie Gallagher

www.washingtonpost.com :

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. "The Bush marriage initiative would emphasize the importance of marriage to poor couples" and "educate teens on the value of delaying childbearing until marriage," Gallagher wrote in National Review Online, for example, adding that this could "carry big payoffs down the road for taxpayers and children." 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

heh. Well yeah you did, but your worse than that, you're also a two faced hypocrite.

digbysblog.blogspot.com :

Gallagher just looooves to rant about "family values" and how important it is that "elites" set an example (presumably so the lower orders remain properly deferential). By any definition, Gallagher herself must be considered a member of the elite class - she went to Yale, after all. And her explanation about why she never went public about taking taxpayer money to ho for Bush - that she "forgot" about the $20,000 - kind of speaks for itself. Man, I sure as hell wish *I* could "forget" about $20,000. Which brings us to this: Gallagher is yet another member of the wingnut "do as I say, not as I do" family values crowd. It turns out that, once upon a time, Ms. Gallagher was - gasp! horrors! - an UNWED MOTHER.

Go read the whole post, it's pretty hilarious. Not exactly practicing what she preaches is our dear friend Amy. So, with all that to do, we arrive at the Bush "press conference", during which a "reporter" Jeff Gannon asked

mediamatters.org :

"How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?" prefacing the question with the assertion that Senate Minority Leader "Harry Reid was talking about the poor having to get food in soup lines."

We'll come back to this shill in a moment. Let's go back to see what Bush said at that "press conference" when asked about all this Payola.

www.whitehouse.gov :

Q Mr. President, do you think it's a proper use of government funds to pay commentators to promote your policies?

THE PRESIDENT: No.
Q Are you going to order that --
THE PRESIDENT: Therefore, I will not pay you to -- (laughter.)
Q Fair enough. Are you ordering that there be an end to that practice?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I am. I expect my Cabinet Secretaries to make sure that that practice doesn't go forward. There needs to be independence. And Mr. Armstrong Williams admitted he made a mistake. And we didn't know about this in the White House, and there needs to be a nice, independent relationship between the White House and the press, the administration and the press. So, no, we shouldn't be going for it.
Q Well, Mr. Williams made a mistake --
THE PRESIDENT: Who?
Q Mr. Williams made a mistake. Did the Department of Education make a mistake?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. They did.
Q What will happen to the people that made this decision?
THE PRESIDENT: We've got new leadership going to the Department of Education. But all our Cabinet Secretaries must realize that we will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet.

I guess that's why you gotta be paying all these shills then huh bushie ?
Well, right after this press conference, Salon dug up YET ANOTHER Payola-Playa.

www.salon.com :

One day after President Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries to stop hiring commentators to help promote administration initiatives, and one day after the second high-profile conservative pundit was found to be on the federal payroll, a third embarrassing hire has emerged. Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, "Ethics & Religion," appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed.

www.usatoday.com :

HHS says it paid columnist for help By Jim Drinkard and Mark Memmott, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — The Department of Health and Human Services acknowledged Thursday that it paid a syndicated columnist at least $4,000 for work on behalf of Bush administration efforts to promote marriage. The disclosure came a day after President Bush called for an end to paying commentators to promote his policies. Wade Horn, assistant secretary for Children and Families at the department, responded Thursday by issuing new rules banning the practice. Conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher both had publicly backed Bush policies while being paid by the government without disclosing it. On Thursday, a third example surfaced. Mike McManus, who writes a weekly column syndicated in 30 to 40 newspapers, said he was paid about $4,000 to train marriage mentors in 2003 and 2004. McManus was subcontracted by the Lewin Group, which had a contract to support community-based programs "to form and sustain healthy marriages."

*sigh* Oh and that "reporter" Jeff Gannon, hmm, not so much a reporter.

mediamatters.org :

Talon News "reporter" lifts from GOP documents verbatim for "news reports" Talon News Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent Jeff Gannon, who accused his colleagues in the press corps of "working off of the talking points" provided by Democrats, has used Bush administration and Republican National Committee (RNC) documents and releases in his Talon "news reports" verbatim and without attribution. In at least two of his articles, Gannon lifted more than half of the text directly from GOP "fact sheets." Moreover, as Media Matters for America has pointed out, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh proclaimed that Gannon repeated a fabricated assertion of Limbaugh's in a question he asked of President Bush at a January 26 press conference.

And now we have perhaps the worst of it all. The Administration using employees of the Social security Administration to pass out the talking points.

yahoo.usatoday.com :

Dems accuse Social Security Administration of plugging Bush's plan WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats lashed out Friday against President Bush's plan to add personal accounts to Social Security and accused his administration of improperly using the Social Security Administration to promote the plan. A pair of Social Security employees told the Democratic Policy Committee that they objected to internal agency documents that directs employees to talk about the system's problems and the need for reform. "That is a political message and it's not my job as an agency employee to project a political message," said Debbie Fredericksen, who works in the Minneapolis field office and is a union representative.

Finally, if you think we have seen the last of all this, consider..

story.news.yahoo.com :

PR spending doubled under Bush By Jim Drinkard, The Bush administration has more than doubled its spending on outside contracts with public relations firms during the past four years, according to an analysis of federal procurement data by congressional Democrats. The administration spent at least $88 million in fiscal 2004 on contracts with major public relations firms, the analysis found, compared with $37 million in 2001, Bush's first year in office. In all, the administration spent $250 million on public relations contracts during its first term

Stop Propaganda Act