Your Tax Dollars At Work

Armstrong Williams, a conservative commentator, talk-show host and newspaper columnist [has] just been unmasked as the frontman for a scheme in which $240,000 of taxpayers’ money was quietly siphoned to him through the Department of Education and a private p.r. firm so that he would “regularly comment” upon (translation: shill for) the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind policy in various media venues during an election year … Mr. Williams also appeared … on CNN to accuse the media of being Michael Moore’s “p.r. machine” and on Tina Brown’s CNBC talk show to lambaste Mr. Stewart for doing a “puff interview” with John Kerry on “The Daily Show” (which Mr. Williams, unsurprisingly, seems to think is a real, not a fake, news program) … [During an interview with Mr Williams, VP] Cheney criticized the press for its coverage of Halliburton and denounced “cheap shot journalism” in which “the press portray themselves as objective observers of the passing scene, when they obviously are not objective.”

“I am a pure entrepreneur, and I made a business decision,” Williams said of the $240,000 contract. “I didn’t think about the dual role of media pundit and entrepreneur. And if I had to do it again I would do it differently, because it is much more important to me my reputation with my peers and with the public.” Williams said it was only after being interviewed by journalists Friday that he realized many major news outlets had disclosure requirements to ensure that their employees avoided such conflicts of interest.

“This happens all the time,” he told me. “There are others.” Really? I said. Other conservative commentators accept money from the Bush administration? I asked Williams for names. “I’m not going to defend myself that way,” he said. The issue right now, he explained, was his own mistake. Well, I said, what if I call you up in a few weeks, after this blows over, and then ask you? No, he said.