The Government Accountability Office has already begun looking into the Bush administration’s decision to give Armstrong Williams $240,000, and fortunately, that probe is about to expand to include some more examples of Bush’s political payola.
The Government Accountability Office will investigate whether the Bush administration broke the law when it paid a syndicated columnist to help its pro-marriage efforts.
The Department of Health and Human Services acknowledged Jan. 28 that it awarded $41,500 in grants to Maggie Gallagher, an authority on marriage and family, to write brochures and other materials in support of President Bush’s marriage initiative.
While working on behalf of HHS and the Justice Department in 2002 and 2003, Gallagher also wrote several columns supporting Bush’s plan…. In a letter sent Thursday to Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and Frank Lautenberg, GAO said it would probe whether Gallagher’s contract used taxpayer funds “for publicity or propaganda purposes.”
With any luck, this research may even expose even more examples of pundits on the payroll. We’ve already learned of three (Williams, Gallagher, and Michael McManus), and Williams has said “there are others.”
If I’m the GAO, I’d start looking at Health and Human Services. ABC News’ Jessica Yellin spoke to Bill Pierce, a spokesman for HHS, yesterday. Asked if there are other journalists still on HHS’ payroll, Pierce would only say, “What is a journalist?”
Sorry, Bill, but that’s not the answer we were looking for.
That said, I’m not altogether optimistic about the expanded GAO investigation. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad the GAO is going to take a thorough look at this, but I also realize it won’t have too big an impact. The GAO, for example, already looked into Bush’s penchant for publicly-funded fake-news segments and concluded that they were illegal. Bush proceeded to ignore the GAO’s research, insisting that the research agency is wrong. The same thing can, and probably will, happen here.
The only way the administration will take these concerns over publicly-funded propaganda seriously is if Congress raises a fuss, public outrage becomes overwhelming, or a lawsuit forces its hand. The GAO report will be useful for rhetorical purposes, but it won’t give the White House more than a moment’s pause.