Friday, January 28, 2005

What Karl Rove got for Christmas

It seems as though Karl was busy buying shills for christmas. Spurious behavior.

Slice:
By Eric Boehlert Jan. 27, 2005
Michael McManus, conservative author of the syndicated column "Ethics & Religion," received $10,000 to promote a marriage initiative.

And three makes a trend. 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.

End slice:

Humm...did those funds come from taxpayer dollars?

2 comments:

wanda said...

What I'm wondering is why none of this came out before the election? If the repugs are suppose to be the party of grass roots morals and values, does this mean that small town America is just as corrupt as the big city hedonist?
Liars, and hypocrits the lot of them. I know, I live in small town USA!!!
Wanda ( Words on A Page)

Anonymous said...

The Rules of Punditry  

The Gallagher case is murkier. Washington Post January 29, 2004

We have not written editorials about Gallagher; she was not paid to covertly espouse administration views in her columns. She was paid, as The Post disclosed, to write brochures and essays for the Bush administration on marriage policy; and she separately praised the administration's marriage policy in her syndicated column.

Was that wrong? A member of The Post's editorial board doing the same thing would be fired. Post journalists do not take money from the government, a policy that applies as strictly to news reporters (whom I do not oversee) as to opinion writers. But we also have the luxury of regular paychecks, which freelance contributors and independent columnists may not enjoy.