Now They're Thinking Like Bloggers! It's About Time.

I'm stealing this from Atrios because in my world, people read me first and then wander over there if they have time before they have to walk the dog.

Lautenberg, Kennedy and Reid have fired a shot across Dear Leader's bow, writing a letter that compares him to Stalin, which is good and right to do since he works so hard to earn the comparison. The topic this time is the flagrant and illegal use of infoganda by Team BushCo in their neverending quest to confuse and manipulate Americans. Atrios has a paragraph of the letter; I'm going to include the whole thing because it really is an objet d'art and deserves to be read aloud nightly to your families or nailed on some doors across DC or both. ARRRGH - it's a pdf file so I have to type it in by hand.

Dear President Bush [ick, my hands are already rebelling]

We are writing to urge you to immediately terminate - and recover funds from - the contract between your administration and the journalist Armstrong Williams. According to media reports, $240,000 in taxpayer funds were transferred to Mr. Williams in exchange for h is agreement to pormote the Administration's "No Child Left Behind" initiative on his broadcasts and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige during his television and radio programs. These payments to Mr. Williams constitute a clear violation of the "Publicity and Propaganda" laws recently passed by Congress. The payments also violated the Antideficiency Act.

In addtion to recovering these funds, we would urge you to disclose if any other jounralists have been paid by your Administration to skew their media reports in favor of your initiatives, proposals or political messages. For example, have any jounralists or media organizations been paid by your Administration to promote your Social Security privatization plan or otherwise promote the idea of a "crisis" in Social Security?

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has stated numerous times that, under the laws cited above, taxpayer funds cannot be used by the Executive Branch for activities in which the "obvious purpose is 'self-aggrandizement' or 'puffery'" The GAO has specifically cited messages that conceal the government's role as illegal "covert propaganda."

In addtion to the illegality of these actions taken by your Administration, we believe that the act of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies undermines the integrity of our democracy. Actions like this were common in the Soviet Union, by until now, thought to be long extinguishe in our country.

These revelations regarding Mr. Williams are the latest - and most disturbing - in a series of actions by your Administration to manipulate public opinion through covert propaganda. On May 19, 2004, the GAO found that your Administration illeglly spent taxpayer funds on covert propaganda by paying ketchum Incorporated to produce fake news stories promoting the image of the new Medicare law. This week, the GAO found that fake news stories produced by the Office of National Drug Control Policy also violated the "Publicity and Propaganda" clause. In addtion, on November 19, 2004, the GAO launched a new inquiry into the legality of hte Department of Education's contract with Ketchum to produce fake news stories and create favorablity rankings of journalists. Good government means that our citizens can trust that government polices put the public's interest first. We don't need "payola" and pulbic relations to educate our kids. We need good teachers, good schools and good standards.

Again, we urge you to take immediate action to recover funds from the contracts with Mr. Williams and any other contracts your Administration has entered into with jounralist to distort their news or editorial coverage.

Sincerely,
Frank R. Lautenberg, Edward M. Kennedy, Harry Reid

It actually felt good to type that. The second paragraph is the best. Can you imagine if the corporate media had any interest at all in investigating BushCo? This would be a story for six weeks.

Reward good behavior. Call Lautenberg 202.224-3224, Kennedy 202.224.4543 and Reid 202.2243542 to let them know you support their courage.

Comments

[Kathy]

The repayment to taxpayers shouldn't come from Armstrong.It should come from the Bush campaign fund.

[eRobin]

You're right - BushCo should pay.