Armstrong and the GOP

With the recent admission by conservative syndicated columnist Armstrong Williams that he "accepted $240,000 from the Bush administration to promote the No Child Left Behind education-reform law on his TV and radio shows" and his assertion that "there are others" on the administration’s payroll, a demand for complete accountability and disclosure from the White House must be undertaken. Republicans have had a field day with the recent CBS news report detailing the scandals of the forged document story at 60 minutes yet have been curiously quiet on the Williams admission (though the implications of the Williams divulgence are, in my mind, far more troubling).

Further, I agree with FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein that a full investigation into the affair should be immediately undertaken (if Michael Powell can pull himself away from making the Super Bowl safe from Mickey Rooney's rear). As stories like this continue to emerge individuals will maintain their exodus away from the main-stream media and enter into the still untamed and untested blogsphere and the "new" media outlets for their "reliable" news reporting (though the ability to pick and choose news that is in complete synchronicity with one’s extreme political ideologies makes this proposition equally as worrisome as the one that it is attempting to replace.)

For an interesting editorial on this topic click here.