PAYOLA FOR PUNDITS

The Bush administration, like all others, is eager to push its agenda in
the media. But federal law prohibits using public money for publicity or
propaganda not authorized by Congress.

And so, the Government Accountability Office determined this week, the Bush
administration's Office of National Drug Policy broke the law when it
produced and disseminated, at taxpayers' expense, purported "news videos"
about drug use among young people. Sent to nearly 300 TV stations, the
videos penetrated about 22 million households.

Last May, the GAO similarly took the administration to task for violating
the law by using public money to pay for faked news reports that were, in
fact, designed to promote the President's Medicare prescription drug plan.

In neither case was the government identified as the source of the "news."

But, for sheer audacity, neither matches the administration's outright
payments to a supposedly independent-minded commentator.

USA Today learned through the Freedom of Information Act that conservative
pundit Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 by the Bush administration to
promote its education policies, especially among African Americans.

Mr. Williams is an African American who arranged interviews of former
Education Secretary Rod Paige, especially in the black media, and heavily
promoted the No Child Left Behind Act in his own syndicated column, in
editorials, on his radio show and during countless TV appearances,
including on journalists' panels. Mr. Williams failed to mention that he
was being paid by the administration to do so.

Citizens have enough to sort through in the daily media barrage, without
having to beware of being duped by hired pundits and faked "news" that's
being paid for, secretly and illegally, with their own tax money.