It’s encouraging to see last week’s revelation about Armstrong Williams become pretty big news. There have been a few developments of note since Friday morning..
* The scandal has already cost Williams one job.
Tribune Media Services, which distributed Williams’ weekly newspaper column, told him Friday that it was terminating its relationship with him immediately.
“Readers may well ask themselves if the views expressed in his columns are his own, or whether they have been purchased by a third party,” Tribune Media Services said in a statement.
* One prominent progressive group is asking for a refund.
People For the American Way, a liberal interest group, today will launch an online campaign urging Williams to return the money. “It’s the taxpayers’ money given out illegally,” says Ralph Neas, the group’s president.
* Senate Dems are equally unamused.
Three Democratic senators — Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Harry Reid of Nevada — wrote Bush Friday to demand he recover the money paid to Armstrong. The lawmakers contended that “the act of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies undermines the integrity of our democracy.”
* House Dems want answers.
Rep. George Miller of California, the top Democrat on the House Education Committee, asked for an inspector general investigation into whether the deal was legal and ethical.
[…]
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings was among Democrats in Congress who asked President Bush to “publicly renounce the use of covert propaganda to influence public opinion” and reveal whether other commentators have been paid to promote his policies.
There was, however, one tidbit in particular that stood out for me: Republicans aren’t defending the Bush-Williams arrangement.
Usually, whenever one of these Bush-related scandals pops up, congressional Dems scream bloody murder and insist on some kind of oversight. Congressional Republicans pat them on the head and tell them that the administration’s penchant for law-breaking isn’t terribly important. But that’s not what happened Friday.
Rep. John Boehner, an Ohio Republican who chairs the House Education Committee, also called for an inquiry by the Education Department’s inspector general.
Stunning. Boehner isn’t even a New England moderate; he’s a full-fledged conservative in good standing with Tom DeLay. And even Boehner was willing to sign off on demands for a formal inquiry.
Granted, if congressional Republicans were serious about their responsibilities, they’d hold actual hearings of their own and explore the legalities of Bush’s publicly-funded propaganda. Asking Bush’s Education Department to investigate itself for improprieties seems self-defeating. Nevertheless, it’s rare when a congressional Republican, and a committee chairman at that, is willing to acknowledge a problem with a Bush administration scheme.
Yes, I realize that it’s sad that I get excited about an experienced Republican lawmaker showing a hint of interest in doing his job, but I’ll take my good news where I can find it.
Post Script: By the way, this was my favorite quote in response to the Bush-Williams controversy.
Alex Jones, director of Harvard’s Shorenstein media center, said he is “disgusted” by what he called “the worst kind of fakery and flackery” on Williams’s part. “It’s propaganda masquerading as news, paid by government, truly a recipe from hell,” he said. “It would make any thinking person hearing any pundit speak want to say, ‘Okay, how much did they pay you to say that?’ ” Jones said the contract also shows that “the Bush administration neither understands nor respects the idea of an independent media.”