Radio aired White House talking points

When you read an article about an event in another country, it's often qualified with some variation of the words "according to official media." Sometimes you'll see the words "state-run media."

Government control of the news is often associated with authoritarian foreign regimes. But there's not a dime's worth of difference between that and what goes on in America these days.

Even by its narrowest definition, it was already known that it's been occurring at least since Bill Clinton's drug czar Barry McCaffrey placed messages in TV shows and magazines promoting the failed drug war. You know it goes on now, as in the PBS program on Hugo Chavez that stopped little short of repeating right-wing talking points.

The Armstrong Williams scandal of 2005 was perhaps the most well-known example. Bush's so-called Department of Education paid Williams, a right-wing commentator, over $200,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind law during his radio and TV shows.

According to Rep. George Miller (D-California), the government paying Williams to promote this law was an act of "propaganda" that was "worthy of Pravda." Miller cited GAO opinions that showed the White House had already violated federal law with video news releases that supported Bush's mangling of Medicare.

This government propagandizing has continued unabated. A former news director for WTMJ radio in Milwaukee now says broadcasters have continued to air talking points that were secretly rushed to them by the Bush White House. The White House has even hired reporters to plant newspaper stories.

Surprised? I'm not.

One suspects it's been going on since probably Bush's daddy was in office, because many of these talking points are almost identical to ones from 15 years ago.

This story also confirms what I've known and said for years: Many right-wing talking points are planted directly by the Republican National Committee.

The right-wing intelligentsia needs to stop whining like a bunch of babies about how the world is being so unfair to them, when they've got the entire media to parrot their lies. But I guess there's money in their babyishness, if they can be paid over $200,000 just to comment favorably on a failed Bush initiative.

(Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56330-2005Jan7.html;
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Radio-Treason-Right-Wing-by-Gustav-Wynn-081130-768.html;
http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com/currentIssue/full_feature_story.asp?NewMessageID=24046&pf=yes)