Is George Will's $250,000 Prize Yet More Payola?

[Lorien]

Is George Will's $250,000 Prize Yet More Payola?


By Dave Astor

Published: February 25, 2005 1:15 PM ET


NEW YORK When the conservative Bradley Foundation awarded a $250,000 prize to George Will last week, it raised some eyebrows at a time when Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher, and Michael McManus have been criticized for accepting government money.

The foundation is a private entity, but it is reported to have ties to the Bush administration, and its president/CEO is a former Republican National Committee member.

The prize "sure has a strong stench of a payoff to yet another White House sycophant," said "Non Sequitur" cartoonist Wiley Miller, whose Universal Press Syndicate comic appears in 700-plus newspapers and includes political commentary. "Is this how they're going to get around direct payoffs, by pretending it's some sort of journalism award?"


(snip)


More: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000817846

[republicannincompoop]

1. Yes, it is a payoff, the Bradley Foundation rewards

mediocre reporting, by mediocre reporters/talking heads, as long as they toe the party line.

Let them pretend to be grown up reporters with real professions.

It keeps them occupied.

[flordehinojos]

15. on the thought of "the Bradley Foundation rewarding mediocre reporting by

mediocre reporters/talking heads as long as they toe the party line."

Ponder this thought,

According to Webster G. Tarpley, author of 'Bush: The unauthorized Biography', "Marvin Pierce was publisher of McCall Corporation publisher of Rebook and McCall's magazine.

"Pierce and his magainzes' theme of TOGETHERNESS ... played a role in the cult of CONFORMITY AND MEDIOCRITY WHICH CRUSHED U.S. MENTAL LIFE THE U.S. IN THE 50s ...."

Te caps are mine ... but, AREN'T THE BUSHES MEDIOCRE?????? DON'T WE ALL JUST GET TIRED OF SAYING IT? DIDN'T "w" HAVE TO CONFORM TO THE FAMILY WAY OF THINKING, DOESN'T HE STILL? ABOVE ALL, DON'T WE ALL NOW HAVE TO CONFORM TO W'S WAY OF THINKING, 'IT'S MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY' SORT OF THING? AND, OTHER THAN FASCISM AND DICTATORS IN GENERAL DON'T LIKE A FREE AND OXYGENATED MENTAL LIFE ... AREN'T THE BUSHES CULTURE (AS IN LITERATURE, THE ARTS, THE SCIENCE ETC.) CRUSHERS?

And now consider ... if George Will is getting $250,000 as an award which is backhandedly being given to him through the Bradley Foundation... well... you are perfectly right -- THE BUSHES STILL REWARD CONFORMITY, MEDIOCRACY AND A CRUSHED OR ZERO INTELLECTUAL LIFE.

As with Karl Rove and his nefarious ways in whom the bushes found a perfect match for their nefarious ways, the bushes have now also found a perfect match in George Will and the Bradley Foundation for their mediocrity, their rabid enmeshment of one thought, one voice, one mind, and their culture crushing ways).

[number6]

27. I second that .....

"Yes, it is a payoff, the Bradley Foundation rewards
mediocre reporting, by mediocre reporters/talking heads, as long as they toe the party line"

[TerdlowSmedley]

2. I'm sure we can look forward to a surge in the development of

new heretofore unheard-of journalism awards.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. Here's a little more info

Regarding who the Bradley's like to give money to.


To further this objective, Bradley supports the organizations and individuals that promote the deregulation of business, the rollback of virtually all social welfare programs, and the privitization of government services. As a result, the list of Bradley grant recipients reads like a Who's Who of the U.S.Right. Bradley money supports such major right-wing groups as the Heritage Foundation, source of policy papers on budget cuts, supply-side economics and the Star Wars
military plan for the Reagan administration; the Madison Center for Educational Affairs, which provides funding for right-wing research and a network of conservative student newspapers; and the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, literary home for such racist authors as Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) and Dinesh D'Souza (The End of Racism), former conservative officeholders Jeane Kirkpatrick, Jack Kemp and William Bennett, and arch-conservative jurists Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia.

Other Bradley grantees include the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation; the Hoover Institute on War, Revolution, and Peace; and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.There are the major conservative publications, such as The Public Interest, The National Interest,and The American Spectator. And there are organizations set up to play specific roles in promoting the right-wing agenda, such as the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that promotes privatization and deregulation, and the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, a vehicle for building support for privitization in low-income communities.

http://www.mediatransparency.org/funders/bradley_foundation.htm

[Racenut20]

4. Be all this true, then we should not be surprised at them giving $ to Will

[hedda_foil]

5. And in addition to all those far right organizations, Bradley funds ....

You guessed it! The f*%#ing DLC.

[MGKrebs]

10. Kick. They also fund the DLC.

You can start here if you need more info:
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/org/ppi.php

[bahrbearian]

19. Oh you must be mistaken, not the DLC

I know for a fact that the DLC is here to defend the little guy. Look how they helped our canidates.

[Al-CIAda]

20. unreal...this shit STINKS to high heaven -eom

[Critical Thinker]

6. George Will has been a critic of BushCo

especially the Iraq War.

In a sense, I think that's the reason he was selected for the award: Will was probably the only candidate who could be considered an actual journalist - the rest of the field was disqualified because, in fact, they are BushBot Model 960 Regurgitating Sycophantic Replicants...

[Supersedeas]

8. his criticism is all too muted...his cheerleading is not

but I agree, payola would not change is right wing mind one way or t'other...award money doesn't drive him...he knows his 'regular' position, well.

[Cocoa]

24. you consider Will a critic of Bush?

and a critic of the war?

Wow...

[Critical Thinker]

31. Will is many things - among them, NOT an advocate of Iraq War

from Will's column of April 6, 2004

U.S. forces in Iraq are insufficient for that mission; unless the civil war is quickly contained, no practicable U.S. deployment will suffice. U.S. forces worldwide cannot continue to cope with Iraq as it is, plus their other duties -- peacekeeping, deterrence, training -- without stresses that will manifest themselves in severe retention problems in the reserves and regular forces.

Since 9/11, Americans have been told that they are at war. They have not been told what sacrifices, material and emotional, they must make to sustain multiple regime changes and nation-building projects. Telling such truths is part of the job description of a war president.

from Will's column of April 6, 2004

The results of elections, including theocratic elements, may be markedly unlovely. That may break the big hearts of those in the U.S. government who hope for a luminously liberal democracy to shame the entire Middle East into emulation, thereby justifying the war originally justified primarily by the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But pursuit of that ideal can impede achievement of something tolerable: a stable, perhaps illiberal, even authoritarian Iraq which cooperates in the war against terrorism. Call this an exit strategy.

from Will's column of May 1, 2004

The commander in chief seems not to fathom the depth of the difficulties when he describes the insurgent cleric Moqtada Sadr as a person who will not ``allow democracy to flourish." ``Allow"? If some bad people would just behave, democracy would sprout like tulips?

Not the type of speech we typically hear from Bushbot Cheerleader Regurgitants of the neo-conservative right.

[Cocoa]

33. actually that is VERY typical chickenhawk garbage

I've heard similar attempts by hawks who are now trying to distance themselves from the Iraq debacle. It doesn't make them critics of the war or critics of Bush, it just makes them cowards.

Just like Will's (and others') attempts to distance themselves from Nixon after his disgrace doesn't mean much either.

Let's not make it too easy for these bastards to dodge accountability for this war.

[GregW]

7. George Will ... that beacon of ethical standards

NOT

Let's not forget his role in the '80 debates where he secretly coached Reagan prior to a debate with Carter using a campaign strategy book stolen] from the Carter campaign ... then he goes on Nightline immediately after the debate and swoons about how great the Gipper was ...

What a freakin' scumbag.

[98geoduck]

13. Good point. George Will always annoyed me, even when I was a moderate.

He's always come across as a smarmy, self righteous, condescending little bitch.

[RBHam]

9. It was a pay off...

big time

[Lorien]

11. How many other "foundations"

have similar rewards for RW propagandists?

[manly]

23. cats

I don't like cats. I like your way of thinking, and basically I usually agree with you and appreciate your thoughts, but those goddamn cat pictures are getting to me. Could you perhaps make them smaller, or fewer, or eliminate them altogether? Please?
With all respect, best wishes,
saberjet22

[Lorien]

25. I do like cats

my photos "offend' you, and you curse my pets? Not terribly mature, IMO. Put me on ignore if they trouble you so deeply. Many people enjoy my cats, so they stay.

[CatWoman]

29. HEY!!!! LAY OFF THE KITTIES!!!!!!!!!

:grr:

[guajira]

32. LOL!! Same Here - I have 5 cats and I say keep the kitties!

About George Will and his "payoff" -- why are we Dems letting Repukes get by with this??

The right-wingers beat the Rather story to death - why do we not do the same to them with Armstrong and the rest of their paid propagandists??

[daleo]

12. Foundations, think-tanks, etc. are mostly scams.

Most of them are all part of the right wing echo chamber. This one is no different.

- 1) a RW think tank (funded by a foundation) writes an article on say, further tax cuts for the rich or invading some hapless country.
- 2) then a RW news source (funded by a foundation) picks it up as a "news" story.
- 3) then a RW news source (corporately owned, such as FOX) picks it up as a "legitimate news story".
- 4) then the conventional corporate media (such as CNN, NYT) pick it up as a conventional news story.

Now, a crackpot idea is in the public realm as a bit of conventional wisdom. Guys like George Will are pretty high on the food chain, at step 3 or 4 usually. They then get rewarded by the guys at step 1 with some phony prize that carries a heft monetary return.

It is all a giant scam.

[Ravy]

14. As long as it isn't taxpayer money, I don't really care....

... most "journalism" nowdays is a corporate advertisment anyway.

[bklyncowgirl]

16. If you can't beat 'em join 'em.

We may not like it but right wing think tanks have a perfect right to hand over rewards to whomever they please. Sure it's a reward for toeing the line and I would not be surprised in the least if they coordinated with the White House on this but frankly, there's nothing much that can be done about it.

What we need is a support mechanism of this sort for progressive journalists. Prizes with real money attached that rewards outstanding efforts in liberal punditry, for example.

This shows how far ahead the right wing is with regard to influencing public opinion. Can anyone think of anything similar on the left?

[sandnsea]

30. You better care

They helped found every single solitary conservative movement there is, from the John Birch Society to Heritage to voucher advocacy. You name it, the Bradleys are behind it with shitpiles of cash. WADS of cash.

L Brent Bozell CNS News. Chairman of "Media Research Center", funded by the Bradleys. One article says he is behind the Rather memo. Recognize him? He's on cable programs all the time. You better believe I want to know when foundations that back fake journalists like him start paying piles of money to supposedly legitimate reporters.

[maddezmom]

17. looks like Will wasn't the only one, from the article:

Another 2003 article, in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, said many of the neoconservatives who would later urge President Bush to invade Iraq had received funding from the Bradley Foundation.

[FlyByNight]

18. George has been a conscienceless whore...

for quite awhile. If something like this 'award'/payoff was presented to someone left of center, he'd certainly be among the torch and pitchfork crowd crowing about ethical standards.

Pompous ass.

[Al-CIAda]

21. Yes, it IS payola. -eom

[CTyankee]

22. And don't forget Georgie's little marital infidelity

all the while pontificating about teens having sex, abortion, and our morals in general. Good thing his wife publicly outed him by throwing his clothes on the front lawn for all to see.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

26. Got a link?

I must've missed that one...

[bearfan454]

28. Heck yes it is n/t