Posted on 01/27/2005 6:14:20 PM PST by ambrose
Third columnist caught with hand in the Bush till Michael McManus, conservative author of the syndicated column "Ethics & Religion," received $10,000 to promote a marriage initiative.
- - - - - - - - - - - - By Eric Boehlert
Jan. 27, 2005 | 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
" That's like William Bennett -- that bastion of morality, that paragon of virtue -- who was discovered to be a high-stakes gambler.
These ethics and virtue guys aren't doing very well. They preach ethics & virtue & morality, but don't follow it in their own lives."
Ummm....Last time I checked gambling wasn't illegal, or immoral.
Gambling, in my view, becomes immoral when one ruins their family's financial situation.
Mr. Bennett did not squander his fortune and put his family into ruin. They're doing just fine, thank you.
We're on the same page here. The odd thing about all this, is there are plenty of conservative writers out there that will, and did, take these same positions without a stipend from some agency. Although I'm not keen on the idea of gov't subsidized journalists, it looks like a tempest in a teapot from my vantage point.
FGS
Hard to get worked up over this when Ted Kennedy was blocking judicial nominees for dem donor special interest groups, and NO ONE CARED.
That's not what I'm saying.
The most recent president besides Bush that we have is Clinton.
Considering the trumped up and fabricated news that the MSM come up with, you don't know if this is a policy that goes back 70 years.
You simply do not have enough information to take a stand at this point.
You don't know if this is payola .
Whoever did this is extremely stupid. They had to realize that this would get out. I wonder if the person who carried out this plan was really a demo sympathizer or a Bush hater. The person or person(s) who did this must be brought into public view. I hope they are humiliated to the point they kill themselves. The last thing we need is to give the evil left more ammo. It's funny, no one complains about NPR and PBS funding leftist media types. Oh, but a majority of the spineless Reps would never terminate NPR and PBS. The NPR and PBS should be disbanded, all parasite workers fired, and all employees have their pension taken from them. We need a Warrior class to rise up and bring this Republic back to it's roots -- not the Socialist Democracy it has been become. The Reps in Congress will be Bush's downfall in the 2nd term. They will NEVER do anything to bring this country back to true Liberty.
Corruption and arrogance on both sides. Not really a surprise.
If we're going to be "on message" here from the DNC fax machine, the correct term for the Bush 2nd term is "HUBRIS".
Thank you.
Yep, can't forget the dupes who cheerlead on both sides too.
If payola is going on in a large way, bigger names are involved. There could also be a lot of quid pro quo for advertising dollars for campaigns. While much of this might not be illegal, it would be extremely embarassing for the media, to have to reveal some of this information. Again, though, one of the people listed as taking compensation was hired to produce specific materials, not to plant opinion articles. I'm going to follow this for a little while before I draw any conclusions.
That's an interesting point.
Sure why not. I was thinking of Tenet. Didn't he receive an award for his work on Homeland Security? There were others, too. GW holds ppl accountable about as often as he vetos legislation. Sorry, it's just a fact.
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