Fakers and Frauds Fool American Taxpayers

The Kansas City Star

By Rhonda Chriss Lokeman

Some of the kids in the Bush administration have been having too much fun, fun, fun. Now Daddy has to take the T-bird away.

A congressional inquiry came up with $88 million that the Bush administration spent last year on public relations contracts, mostly for furthering policies favored by the conservative president and his allies.

That’s taxpayers’ money that was spent on influence-peddling.

Meanwhile, President Bush’s $2.57 trillion budget has called for reductions for veterans’ health care, education, law enforcement, Medicare and science. Think of the federal funds wasted on puffery.

That $240,000 contract to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to promote No Child Left Behind would have been better spent on Head Start. Canada-bound seniors seeking cheaper medicines could use the $21,500 writer Maggie Gallagher got in 2002 for the pro-marriage initiative. Veterans wounded in Iraq would appreciate that $10,000 Michael McManus got to plug Bush’s marriage initiative.

This administration is conservative except when it comes to spending other people’s money.

They have a name for what the Bushvolk have been up to. It’s called propaganda. Congress wants to put the brakes on this federally engineered gravy train. About time!

House lawmakers introduced the Federal Propaganda Prohibition Act of 2005, and senators introduced the Stop Propaganda Act. Lawmakers want to regulate the flow of tax dollars used for propaganda by requiring full disclosure and penalties for violators.

The public has a right to know how its money is spent. The bills would make prohibition of covert propaganda a part of the U.S. Code. Government agencies would have to disclose federal funds spent on polling, public relations and advertising contracts.

The House legislation was introduced by Democratic Reps. Rose DeLauro of Connecticut, Henry Waxman of California and Louise Slaughter of New York. The Senate bill was introduced by Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine of New Jersey, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Richard Durbin of Illinois.

These bills do not threaten the First Amendment. They could keep the press freer through government accountability. This push for more open government should be a warning to tax-exempt religious groups that receive government contracts but mask their politicking as free-will preaching. Ever wonder how much federal “walking around money” is spent on having tax-exempt churches promote so-called values initiatives?

As reported by Advertising Ageon Jan. 31: The money spent on PR by the Bush administration grew by 128 percent or by $50 million since the end of the Clinton administration.

The companies that got the most: Ketchum Communications ($97 million); Matthews Media Group ($52 million); and Fleishman Hillard ($41 million).

A congressional probe found that 40 percent of the PR contracts, worth $37 million, were awarded in 2004 “without full and open competition.” Reportedly, the government’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services spent more than $94 million on contracts in the first four years of the Bush administration. Meanwhile, Bush has recently proposed $3 billion in cuts for domestic programs. Wonder where the money went?

The propaganda prohibition deserves bipartisan support but it’s unlikely to come. If approved, however, it could help journalistic credibility and expose the phonies on the government payroll.

Under the Bush administration, the government has employed actors posing as journalists to broadcast its messages. At least on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart and crew are up front about their fake TV news show. Some people in government don’t have half as much integrity.

The Government Accountability Office reported at least two instances of covert propaganda that were deemed violations of the federal Antideficiency Act. The GAO found that the Department of Health and Human Services used video news releases depicting news stories favorable to the Medicare drug law and used an actor pretending to be a reporter. This fakery was not disclosed.

The GAO also found another actor posing as a journalist for the Office of Drug Control Policy, which similarly manipulated messages for its anti-marijuana campaign.

In a letter to the White House, Rep. Slaughter recently asked why a poser received White House press credentials under an assumed name. The president even called on the man for questions.

Slaughter asked why James Guckert, alias Jeff Gannon, reported for the Talon News Service when he was also working for GOPUSA, a Republican consulting group run by Texas GOP activist Bobby Eberle.

According to CNN, Guckert was denied press credentials to the House and Senate in 2003. Next thing you know, he’s part of the White House press pool. His credentials were under Gannon.

“It appears that ‘Mr. Gannon’s’ presence in the White House press corps was merely as a tool of propaganda for your administration,” Slaughter wrote the White House.

The Bushvolk willfully and recklessly manipulate the message and messengers. Not since Tricky Dick’s time has anyone sunk this low to fool the public. Not since then have a chief executive’s claims of deniability seemed so implausible, either.