This is how they do it...

Columnist Resigns His Post, Admitting Lobbyist Paid Him

A senior scholar at the Cato Institute, the respected libertarian research organization, has resigned after revelations that he took payments from the lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for writing columns favorable to his clients.

snip...

The revelation caps a year of disclosures about partisan payments to seemingly independent writers, including Armstrong Williams, the conservative columnist and television host, who received payments from the federal Education Department at a time when he was promoting the Bush administration's education policies in his columns. The administration has been under mounting pressure to become more transparent in its communications after accounts that it paid for and printed articles in Iraqi periodicals as part of its overseas propaganda effort.

snip...

A second scholar, Peter Ferrara, of the Institute for Policy Innovation, acknowledged in the same BusinessWeek Online piece that he had also taken money from Mr. Abramoff in exchange for writing certain opinion articles. But Mr. Ferrara did not apologize for doing so. "I do that all the time," Mr. Ferrara was quoted as saying.

snip...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/17/politics/17abramoff.html?hp&ex=1134795600&en=b42957e35d5d2158&ei=5094&partner=homepage

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I've known for a long time it was pay for play, but how much of what we have read during this administration has been ethically written. I expect that when the think tankers are on the take, they need to attribute their paid tripe to the appropriate pocket.

against democracy in this country..