Bush Administration Broke Propaganda Rules, GAO Says - Bloomberg

[rndmprsn]

this one has kind of slipped off the radar screen...big surprise when this admin "purchases" good coverage...it can easily make sure "no" coverage happens either...we've all seen it a million times.

anyhow...what we all already knew, now is out there for everyone too see...in a ideal world the cockroaches would scatter from the light.

--

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aQaO48XF6TI4&refer=top_world_news

Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- The Bush administration broke anti- propaganda rules by using tax dollars to pay a columnist and create news video to promote the president's education policies, the investigative arm of Congress said.

The Government Accountability Office issued two reports yesterday examining Department of Education contracts with a public relations firm, Ketchum Inc. Ketchum prepared a video for use in television news programs, checked news stories to see how the Republican Party's view on education was reported and contracted with commentator Armstrong Williams, the report said.

The education department took these steps to promote President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind law, which established new testing requirements for public schools, the report said. The news video does not say the federal government is the source of the material, nor did Williams reveal the government's connection to his comment, the report said.

``Rather than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on producing Republican propaganda, the Administration should return those funds and live up to the promises they made to America's students and teachers,'' said Senator Edward Kennedy in a statement. The Massachusetts senator and fellow Democrat Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey had requested the Government Accountability Office look into the Ketchum contracts.

[shraby]

1. What happens now? The departments get fined

and pay the fine out of our tax money?

[rndmprsn]

3. thats the million dollar question...

WHO IS GOING TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE?!

you can have all the investigations and commitees in the world, but if no one is held accountable WTF even bother?

[BlueCaliDem]

2. Okay, Now the GAO Established that...

...what happens now?

My guess? Nothing.

Just like back in January 2003 when the GAO had exhausted ALL it's polite requests with Cheney to hand over the list of names of those who attended the still secret meeting that gave us our energy bill of today, and threatened with filing a suit against them, Cheney pulled a couple of strings and the Republican controlled government retaliated by telling GAO that if they continued on, they would have their funding cut drastically.

The GAO buckled under those threats, and dropped the suit against Cheney and his (still!) secret band of thieves.

So I'm curious...now the GAO established that the * Administration used taxpayers' money (not only Republican taxpayer money, but liberals', Democrats', and Progressives' tax money too!) to fund the propaganda for their sorry "No Child Left Behind Bill" through confused black righwinger and radio host Armstrong Williams (who now knows what it feels like to be black in the rightwinger world since they dropped him like a brick!)--what will they do?

My guess?

Buckle through their knees...again.