THIRD conservative columnist! Bush pay-for-play scandal GROWS!

[Modem Butterfly]

http://salon.com/news/feature/2005/01/27/mcmanus/print.html

Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, "Ethics & Religion," appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed.

SNIP

Horn, who has known McManus for years, says he first learned about the payment on Thursday. In the wake of the Gallagher story, he asked his staff to review all outside contracts and determine if there were any other columnists being paid by HHS. They informed him about McManus. Horn says the review for similar contracts continues.

Horn insists that HHS was not paying Gallagher and McManus to write about Bush administration initiatives but for their expertise as marriage advocates. "We live in a complicated world and people wear many different hats," he says. "People who have expertise might also be writing columns. The line has become increasingly blurred between who's a member of the media and who is not. Thirty years ago if you were a columnist, then you were a full-time employee of a newspaper. Columnists today are different."

[electropop]

1. Goebbels would be proud. n/t

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

17. You got that right. Spot on.

[KamaAina]

2. Nothing but top-shelf purchases for Bush**co (sarcasm)

Puh-leeze! Maggie Gallagher and now McManus make Armstrong Williams look like freepin' Walter Cronkite, for crying out loud!

[elehhhhna]

3. Why doesn't Krauthammer praising his own secretly-authored

Bush speech not count?

[PATRICK]

4. Small fry

These are issue specific offenses. We know of previous money taking in general by bigger names that reached a lot wider to the general principle. Speeches, gifts, consultation and outright payments. The RW spread the money around liberally and it wasn't just Bushco but their friends and other zealots.

The bigger issue, especially if they want to get into the perilous "everyone does it" mode, is to keep panning out to see the whole monster the media has become. Remove reputation, myth, viability. The RW will risk it to bring down not their paid cronies, but legitimate columnists they disagree with. That is their outrageous habit if the silent treatment does not suffice.

Perhaps a scorched earth policy regarding hyped up media is in order at least to destroy the supporting viewership and advertiser base until they draw back from political controversy and phony propaganda. If not, the RW will continue to poison and purge for its own selective world of illusions. or compete, but that still gives the illusion of being the Yin to their Yang not truth versus lies.

[fryguy]

5. this needs to stick and not let * pass off accountability

I was listening to a clip from an the press conference where, when asked about the RNC paying the press to stump for them, chimp replied (in addition to the comment about the bright line) that he was calling on all his secretaries to make it clear not to do this. seems that he's already spinning to put himself beyond the controversy, making it something others are doing without his knowledge.....that's gotta stop!

[asjr]

6. Shrub and his lily white ass. He probably started it all. The

American people will never know about it. He still has a lot of whores on his payroll who will keep quiet as long as the money keeps coming in.

[Garbo 2004]

7. Now they're trying to tell us that newspaper columnists are "specialists"

like astrophysicists and neurosurgeons??? The "expertise" required is to have an agenda and write about it. I haven't seen any evidence that this guy is even a licensed marriage counselor. He certainly doesn't mention any such credentials on his site.

From the Salon article"

"The problem springs from the failure of both Gallagher and McManus to disclose their government payments when writing about the Bush proposals. But one HHS critic says another dynamic has led to the controversy, and a blurring of ethical and journalistic lines: Horn and HHS are hiring advocates -- not scholars -- from the pro-marriage movement. "They're ideological sympathizers who propagandize," says Tim Casey, attorney for Legal Momentum, a women's rights organization. He describes McManus as being a member of the "extreme religious right."

Horn denies the charge: "It's not true that we have just been selectively working with conservatives." According to news accounts, the administration seeks to spend $1.5 billion promoting marriage through marriage-enrichment courses, counseling and public-awareness campaigns."

$1.5 BILLION?????? Our tax dollars at work...again. x(

[Emboldened Chimp]

8. This needs to be INVESTIGATED!

But it won't happen because the fucking asshole Republicans control our government. Those assholes are aiding and abetting crimes against the people of the United States. This can no longer stand!

[cheezus]

11. can we start calling it Mediagate?

this seems like a good starting point to uncover all the media corruption

[Just Me]

9. Add the SSA (taxpayer-funded, public service agency).

The neoCONimperialists have been USING SSA employees to push deceptive/manipulative propaganda.

Further evidence of a pattern of deception,...of a fraud being perpetrated against the American people by the neoCONimperialists.

Further proof of a charge of "high crimes and misdemeanors" and breaches of their oath of office. Further proof that the neoCONimperialists are guilty of crimes against our people and our country. Further proof of an egregious abuse of power, using their office to profit off the American people.

Disgusting buttwipes!!! :mad:

[Lord_StarFyre]

10. ...And, where are OUR Democratic "Leaders"...

...demanding a FULL accounting of EVERY ConservaNazi Pundit/Talking Head/News Bim that has been on the Dumbya Misadministration Payolla Roll.

I'd lay odds that CNN's Bush Cabana Boy Bill Hummer, oops, Hemmer has been on the recieving end of Dumbya $$$...

[Modem Butterfly]

12. I'd like to see this too!

NT

[atre]

13. That tells you something about the world we live in...

... where hundreds of thousands of people take "ethics" advice from a guy who would do this sort of thing.

[Bluebear]

14. Come forward Hannity, Malkin, Coulter......

You know it's a mmeter of time before we find that you, too, have been on the Bush "take".

[KamaAina]

15. I can't wait until two more of these meatballs are exposed

Then the headline will read:

"Fifth columnist exposed taking money from Bush** administration"

:evilgrin:

[Rex]

16. They all work for the BFEE

Thank GOD we got Air America!