Armstrong Williams Shills for Bush Regime

CONSPIRACY PLANET ^ | Friday, January 7, 2005 | unk

[Chi-townChief]

"Yassah, I sell No Chile Left Behind fo' ya, Massah Bush." -- Armstrong Williams

Bushonian Shill Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 to promote the notorious No Child Regime Left Behind law by the Department of Education, reports USA Today.

USA Today, also known as McPaper for its dumbed down coverage of nearly anything and everything,said that "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."

"The contract may be illegal 'because Congress has prohibited propaganda,' or any sort of lobbying for programs funded by the government, said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 'And it's propaganda.'

Poor Melanie. Has she ever heard of Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly?

USA Today also reports that "Williams' contract was part of a $1 million deal with Ketchum that produced 'video news releases' designed to look like news reports.

[Chi-townChief]

Of course, this opens with the now-obligatory bit of liberal racism but has anyone heard anything else about this one?

[not-a-neocon]

"Yassah, I sell No Chile Left Behind fo' ya, Massah Bush." -- Armstrong Williams

Who is this guy?

He just doen't make any sense.

[1iron]

Armstrong said he regrets the poor decision, and would not make that decision again.

[carlr]

I expect the dems to quickly move to de-fund NPR.

No?

[Brilliant]

To me, it just shows what I already knew: The Education Department is a complete waste of money.

[anniegetyourgun]

Here is the AP story on same. Much arm-waving over stuff that D's have never done - wink, wink.....

[mlc9852]

It was on ABC News tonight and it looked really bad. I think this will be an embarrassment to Bush, even though he may not have been personally involved. Whoever was behind it used very poor judgment. And I've seen the story on Drudge.

[dts32041]

Juan Williams who says he is a journalist and not a pundit, was upset the AW didn't split the fees with him.

[rave123]

Armstrong is a very vocal conservative black republican . According to the news report, the education dept and possibly Rod Paige, gave him a 240K payment to talk up the no child left behind act. Big deal DU have been doing things like this for years and the prez knew nothing about it.

[rodguy911]

I saw it on FNC about a half hour ago. It is bad judgment but it's not quite on a par with selling nuclear secrets to the chinese now is it.

[cake_crumb]

It might have been better if the author had cut back on the venom coctails. "No Child Regime Left Behind law"?

[Bahbah]

"The Education Department is a complete waste of money."

Yes it is. BTW, Armstrong Williams is on BO right now.

[SandRat]

"The contract may be illegal 'because Congress has prohibited propaganda,' or any sort of lobbying for programs funded by the government, said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 'And it's propaganda.' ....

What does she think PBS is?

[zygoat]

"The contract may be illegal 'because Congress has prohibited propaganda,' or any sort of lobbying for programs funded by the government, said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 'And it's propaganda."

Programs funded by the government,huh? Would that include NPR? Among about a gazillion other government funded, liberal tripe spewing, tax exempt, democrat inundated, propaganda filled organizations out there Melanie?

[ScottFromSpokane]

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/05_01_02_corner-archive.asp#049714

It's indefensible, though that won't stop some people from defending it.

[conservativeharleyguy]

"Yassah, I sell No Chile Left Behind fo' ya, Massah Bush." -- Armstrong Williams"

Whoever wrote this is a racist prick, and would probably be screaming his head off about "disenfranchisement" and racism if anyone on the right said the same about a black liberal.

But then, he doesn't even have the strength of his (or her) own convictions to identify himself.

[Miss Marple]

Armstrong Williams on O'Reilly now. According to him, he was contacted by a PR firm hired by DOE to run ads for the NCLB Act featuring Rod Paige. That is what the money was for. His advocacy was separate from the ads.

He says that if he had it to do over again, he would not take the money for the ads, because of the appearance. He also says he has lost his Chicago Tribune syndication contract because of this.

Seems like an honest mistake to me, if what Williams says is true.

Now I would ask why the MSM isn't outraged by Paul Krugman's taking money from Enron while writing columns for the New York Times promoting that corporation?

I was PO'd about this earlier today, but now that I have additional information I am not so sure.

[Chi-townChief]

Yeah, it doesn't sound real good but I'm waiting to hear if there's more to it.

[MamaLucci]

Paul Krugman was the first person I thought of when I realized what a big deal this was becoming. The left's hypocrisy knows no bounds.

[rave123]

I think he made a mistake. Armstrong is a good guy and yes, the money may have looked good and maybe he didn't think anyone would notice- but I'm not so upset about this. Sure it doesn't look good but hey, worse has happened. I'm willing to chalk it up to bad judgement and hoping that no one would find out.