Faking It

The $40 million inauguration is still more than a week away, but my personal honeymoon/mental recouperation period with the Prez appears to be over. Not only have I been fuming over Gonzales' weasally testimony to Congress, but now we have the reemergence of the Bush Administration propaganda wing. You may remember their previous attempts at disguising government prostletyzing as actual news, creating fake "special reports" touting Bush's medicare drug bill and drug abuse reform, among others. These aired on local news channels without any disclaimers that the spots were produced by the government and the "correspondants" were actors (their "reporter" names are Karen Ryan, Alberto Garcia and Mike Morris, just in case you were wondering).

Since fake news garnerned them a slap on the wrist from the GAO, the Bushies have decided to leave that angle to "The Daily Show" and just move right into payola. The Department of Education has "independently" decided that a prudent use of taxpayer dollars is to bribe conservative black radio host Armstrong Williams to sing the praises of the "No Child Left Behind Act" on his show. What is the price to shill for the federal government on the public airwaves? A mere $240,000. Would it be pandering to both right and left if I asked how much Humvee armor that would buy?