Armstrong Williams: I'm Not The Only One On The Take.....

[priapis]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2281&u=/thenation/20050110/cm_thenation/32114&printer=1

let the games begin!
hannity?
Rush?
malkin?

doesnt even have to be cash. in-kind? access?

bwahahahaha

[chelsea0011]

1. Others? Veeeeeery interesting.

But don't count the legit media to be on this.

[IndianaGreen]

14. tell us, tell us, tell us!

Please, tell us who else is getting money to promote Bush's policies. Name names, Armstrong!

[LiberalinNC]

2. Bad judgement my ass!

Money talks!

[rocktivity]

3. Money doesn't talk. It swears.

--Bob Dylan

:headbang:
rocknation

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. All across America, criminal attorneys are watching to see if

Armstrong gets away with the "bad judgment" defense. In fact, we'll name it after him. The Armstrong defense. People all over this country will get off based on the Armstrong defense.

Judge: bad judgment, you say? Well, that could happen to any conservative. Just please don't do it again. Case closed.

[tridim]

4. It's easier than that

All of them are on the take. Faux, all of RW talk radio, and all the RW pundits.

My new pet theory is that the slush fund originated from the "lost trillion" at the Pentagon.

[lavenderdiva]

6. ROTFLMAO!! n/t

[SophieZ]

12. Hah, a trillion will buy elections, too, not just some two-bit pundits.

This is a replay of news that came out during the Enron revelations. Not only did Enron hire Ralph Reed and sort of keep him on ice for the Bushes so he wouldn't work for a Bush competitor, Enron also threw some bucks towards journalists. (And academics. And analysts. And brokers. And certainly members of Congress, lotsa Rs and some Ds.) At the time when I read this three years ago, I didn't really know who Krugman was. Now, I find it odd, because I find Krugman to be one of the few mainstream pundits that is on target. And, he has done yeoman's work on the voting machine issue.


Pundits face storm over Enron payments

January 29, 2002

http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20020129/3809354s.htm
USA Today
Page 3D

By Peter Johnson

Last week, many media outlets chewed over whether they had missed the Enron story and were now rushing to catch up. The answers: yes and yes.

Now, in what some people are calling Punditgate, some well-known talking heads who accepted Enron money are disclosing it and taking heat. The list includes Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, who got $100,000 for serving on an Enron board; Lawrence Kudlow, co-host of CNBC's America Now, who got $50,000 for speaking fees and an Enron subscription to his economic research firm; Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, who got more than $25,000 for writing speeches for former Enron chief Kenneth Lay; and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, who got $50,000 as a board member.

[Spiffarino]

17. Krugman??

Say it ain't so, Paulie! :cry:

[charlie]

18. Krugman wrote about his stint

some time ago. Here's the short version:

http://www.pkarchive.org/personal/ShortVersion.html

[StephanieMarie]

5. Let's keep up the heat to find the others! n/t

[tsuki]

7. I love this:

"Chavez was upset and joked that she had received bupkis from the White House. Prior to going on air, she had complained that ArmstrongGate had caused some people to assume that she and other conservative commentators were also riding this gravy train. Since the story broke on Friday, she said, several people had asked her how much she had received from the Bush administration. She was pissed at Williams for conduct that was raising questions about the whole cadre of rightwing pundits."

[stray cat]

9. We should email a few and ask who has been receiving gifts

[indigobusiness]

8. No integrity....none.

This pompous paragon of hypocrisy doesn't even understand the nature of the stink of his corruption.

[indigobusiness]

10. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[flordehinojos]

13. there is also this exchange between Timmy Russert and Al Hunt on MTP

a snipped of which is posted at the Roger Ailes blogspot, i.e.,

(snip of Al Hunt talking to Tim Russert with an observation by the rogerailes blogspot on Andrea Mitchell's intercessory interruption:

".... It's certainly as egregious a journalist violation as one could engage in. Mr. Williams' column was yanked, as it should be. I will say this. Armstrong did deliver his promise, because I occasionally worked out at a gym and Armstrong's there, and he told me several times, you know, "Why don't you write about No Child Left Behind." I don't know if I'm going to be on one of those government expense accounts or not but...

MR. RUSSERT: How many columns did you do?

MR. HUNT: I didn't do any. So I let him down. I'm sorry, Armstrong. Listen, I'll tell you this. I'll bet that there will be a great market for FOIR, Freedom of Information Requests, in the next couple weeks because I suspect Armstrong Williams is not alone. There have been other people who've been doing this.
And then Andrea Mitchell jumped in before Hunt could name names."

link to the rogerailes blogspot:
http://rogerailes.blogspot.com/2005_01_09_rogerailes_archive.html#110529815096481119


link to the entire MTP Sunday Jan. 9 Program:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6805000/

The Spanish have a saying which goes something like this, "cuando el rio suena es porque agua trae", Americans have a similar saying, "where there is smoke, there is fire".

[Eric J in MN]

15. Prosecute him for breaking bribery/propaganda laws

and let him leniency if he names names.

[priapis]

16. please let Coulter be one of them, please please

[charlie]

19. Howcumzit

the Big Heat is on Armstrong, but the bobbleheads are saying bupkis about Bush? This stinks.

[Skittles]

20. bad judgement my ass

he's a f***ing sell-out, a g.d. Bush Whore. A DISGRACE. There is no defense except pure greed.

[LowerManhattanite]

21. Armstrong was sloppy—and didn't launder the money well...

This could be one of the biggest stories to come down the pike in years—especially for a navel-gazing media such as ours. But, in thinking about it more, there are some speedbumps (actually massive rocky outcroppings) ahead for this story.

1.) Trying to suss out who's "on the take" could conceivably shove some newsrooms into outright civil war as one could be seen as trying to take down a fellow reporter who works alongside him/herself—possibly even bureau chiefs and editors. It could go well with crisply-reported, network-exposing, suicide-inducing exposés...or...it could devolve into a nasty "Lord of the Flies" self-immolating, in-house scenario...all too easily.

2.) News organizations will find their reputations DIRECTLY on the line should a major personality they employ be exposed. Saying a reporter is "biased" is one thing. Saying they can be actually monetarily bought is another. An organization can be totally denuded by an exposure like this. How many will go full-bore to see where this story goes and how many will shut up in a "Gentlemen's Agreement" to protect their (in the words of. Gov. LePetomaine in Blazing Saddles) "phoney-baloney jobs"?

That said, my nominees for the (s)hit parade are as follows:

Drudge: He works so closely with the Rove machine in sculpting the message of the day that there has to be some serious, if-well laundered financial recompense. Let's git ta diggin' greenback-hounds!

Larry Elder: A second-tier shill who's desperate enough for acclaim that he'd take anything offered in the hope that his putting out the message like a good boy would gain him some consideration from his "massas".

Hannity: Another lock-step "message-of-the-day" opinion dribbler so dead-on with Rove and wide-netted in his potential exposure that he'd be impossible to not consider. When found out, he'll say "They had to find some way to counteract the liberal media bias, so they did whatever they had to...and I'm not ashamed to say I helped them overcome the limits on this administration's first amendment rights!" Bank on it.

Kudlow on CNBC: The main admin economic policy shill. Month after month, he'd pre-puff the coming job report numbers and when they came in smaller and smaller would find ANY excuse to "positiv-ize" them or dismiss the methodology behind the arrival at the number (of course, in those few months the numbers were good, there were NO statistical quibbling). He would do this so fervently that only someone paid a blindingly large amount of money OR someone with their family strapped to a MOAB in a bomber flying over Mosul would screech that much for BushCo.

What else will come out from this?

"Armstrong and Drudgie sitting in a tree...K-I-S-S-I-N---oops! I mean L-Y-I-N-G " :)

[roguevalley]

22. Someone in another post stated that sending bogus checks for

$240,000.00 to other 'pundits' might be fun. I have made up on old computer printer check forms the following:

John Q Public jAN. 1, 2005
123 Sore Loserman Lane
Corporate Town, USA

pay to the
order of ________________________________________ $240,000.00

two hundred forty thousand and no/100 cents

For: shilling and
toadying John Q. Public

I have them made to send to the pres of CBS, ABC and NBC as well as Paula Zahn, Bill O'Reily, Wolf Blitzer and George Stephanopolous

Nice idea. Nice for them to get a few hundred of these.

RV

EDIT: IT smushed putting it here. :)