Armstrong Williams: I Am Not Alone

by David Corn, The Nation

<snip>

Tony Snow was shaking his head at Williams' indiscretion, and Chavez was upset and joked that she had received bupkis from the White House. Prior to going on air, she had complained that ArmstrongGate had caused some people to assume that she and other conservative commentators were also riding this gravy train. Since the story broke on Friday, she said, several people had asked her how much she had received from the Bush administration. She was pissed at Williams for conduct that was raising questions about the whole cadre of rightwing pundits. During our non-debate on Williams, I noted that it was a waste of taxpayer money to pay Williams for supporting the Bush administration, which he seemed quite willing to do for free. And I wondered aloud how this contract had come to be.

After our segment finished, Chavez and I headed to the green room, and there he was: Armstrong Williams. He was waiting to go on air to defend himself. I've known him a long time; we've often sparred, in friendly fashion, on these shouting-head shows. I shook my head and said, "Armstrong, Armstrong, Armstrong...." He was quick with his main talking point: "It was bad judgment, Dave. Bad judgment." His phone rang. He answered it, said hello, and then told the person on the other end, "It was bad judgment. You know, just bad judgment." I was reminded that in addition to being a pundit, Williams, a leading African-American conservative and Clarence Thomas protege, is a PR specialist with his own firm. Not too long ago, Michael Jackson called him for advice. Now he had himself for a client, and, heeding conventional crisis-management strategy, he was practicing strict message discipline: bad judgment, bad judgment, bad judgment.

<snip>

I asked if Williams had yet been conducted by the inspector general at the Education Department, the agency that had awarded the contract that supplied him $241,000 for promoting the NCLB measure within the African-American community. Representative George Miller, the ranking Democrat on the education committee, and other House Democrats had already called for an investigation. Why should the IG contact me? Williams replied, noting he had been merely a subcontractor. Any thorough investigation, I remarked, would include questioning the subcontractor. He scratched his head. "Funny," he said. "I thought this was a blessing at the time."

And then Williams violated a PR rule: he got off-point. "This happens all the time," he told me. "There are others." Really? I said. Other conservative commentators accept money from the Bush administration? I asked Williams for names. "I'm not going to defend myself that way," he said. The issue right now, he explained, was his own mistake. Well, I said, what if I call you up in a few weeks, after this blows over, and then ask you? No, he said.

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=2114

Hear that.... that clickety clickety.....? Could it be.... thousands more FOIA requests getting whipped up?

I have to admit, I always thought USA Today was, like "paper-lite." Props to them for breaking this story in the first place.

I agree that they are news-lite, but news-lite is better than "news bought and paid for by the WH."

It's funny how some papers end up being heroes in these times.

:evilgrin:

this papers actually doing its job.

finger at real culprits. May we hope. If he can name and prove justs one or two, it would make a huge difference.

CNN
Faux
NBC
ABC
MSNBC
Clear Channel
CBS

who have been the most vocal supporters of the bush admin? who will defend williams now?

people (national review did an article essentially asking 'hey what's the big deal?' and then saying he only got attacked because he's black, and as we all know liberals are racists) who are the most vocal in defending him could be ones also on the take.

i don't look to coulter or hannity so much as they make tons of money already, and even they might see the conflict of interest when setting up that deal.

i would look to the 2nd tier commentators and pundits to see who is also being paid by bushco.

goldberg, malkin and others like them have always been the most suspicious to me anyhow.

the line of questioning with the press corpse to get them on the record with their answers, then dig as deep as humanly possible with FOIA requests to validate their answers.

Armstrong is the prototype on the success of this tactic, let's try and duplicate it!

"bad judgment" but if it was bad judgment for him than what was it for the Bush administration? The answer is it was standard operating procedure. This was plain dishonesty on the part of all and the idea that Williams is not alone is a forgone conclusion.

The question I have is are these paid spokes-whores reporting this income on their taxes?

actually believe their supposed ideology is sorely mistaken. o'reilly, hannity, limpballs are all paid GROTESQUE sums of money to spew their verbal diarrhea. That's their job. And you know, they're not stupid people. Do you think for one minute, for example, that the heads don't know what a fiasco Iraq has turned out to be? Of course they do, but they are paid huge sums to lie to the American people.

and from Career Prole's post

We don't go out and hire journalists and propagandize and lie and put people on payroll so that they'll say what you want. We just don't do that and they do and that's happening. And Al Jazeera is right there at the top. --Donald Rumsfeld, 12/24/2004

Move over Al Jazeera, the WH has more money and more pundits.

Because now they are going to whack you anyway.