First We Count the Money & Then We Do Our Commentary

USA Today spilled this particular pot of high-priced beans yesterday: Armstrong Williams, nationally prominent conservative black opinionator, admits he accepted $240,000 from the Bush administration's Education Department to promote "No Child Left Behind" on his radio and TV show, "The Right Side."

The same people in the Education Dept. were behind fake news casts in support of the Medicare prescription drug bill a year ago, for which they got slapped by the Government Accountability Office, which called the fake news pieces an illegal use of taxpayers' dollars. "Illegal," incidentally, because Congress has prohibited propaganda or any sort of lobbying for programs funded by the government.

For his part, Armstrong Williams was blithely unconcerned when confronted, justifying the acceptance of cash-for-positive-spin because he was already in favor of No Child Left Behind. Convenient, then, ain't it, that being "for" something can earn you big bucks from the Big Bucks Administration?

Let's call it what it is: corruption.