"Just damn"

"Just damn," writes Michael King of Ramblings' Journal re Armstrong Williams's admission he was paid $240,00 by the Bush administration to promote the administration's No Child Left Behind legislation in his syndicated column, on his radio and television shows and "to 'encourage' other blacks in the media to do the same." King's take is the best -- and most heartfelt -- thing we've heard or read on this shameful and damaging episode:

Black conservatives like myself work day-in and day-out to promote solid and beneficial causes, which have included NCLB, but with one-fell-swoop, Williams has effectively torpedoed much of that work.

We constantly come under scrutiny by others from both sides of the aisle, from some conservatives who are wary of our presence, and by many liberals who insist that we are "on the take" or "reaching for scraps from 'Massa's table." We constantly have to prove that we are not some sort of 'spook sitting by the door' when Armstrong comes along and not only accepts taxpayer money, but doesn't see anything truly wrong with it!

This calls into question any and all pundits that appear on behalf of the Bush Administration on television, radio and in print across the board. When those on the left call commentators on Fox News into question for being "paid operatives" what sort of defense is there? After all, Armstrong Williams claimed to be his own man, yet was a paid operative of the Bush White House.

Well, I can tell you with complete certainty that the folks that I know and associate with on the right aren't paid by the Administration. On the contrary. If I were, I wouldn't be scraping to get by like everyone else.

Armstrong's entire message becomes suspect as far as I'm concerned, though. And as far as I'm concerned, he becomes "damaged goods" in terms of any sort of conservative black message.

You know how pundits were always joking that Howard Dean was on Karl Rove's payroll?  Do you suppose Armstrong Williams is secretly working for Hillary? The pundits on Brit Hume's show last night -- with Brian Williams subbing -- were discussing whether the story was "a thing."  Did it have legs? "No," said Fred Barnes half-heartedly.  "Yes," said Juan Williams heartbrokenly.  Armstrong Williams is a dear friend of Juan Williams's and godfather to one of his children.  As Michael King says, "Just damn."

Update: A couple of interesting points from the NYT news report:

1. Mr. Williams, 45, apologized yesterday for blurring his roles as an independent commentator and a paid promoter. "This is a great lesson to me," he told Paul Begala of CNN, who himself has an off-air job as a paid Democratic political consultant but discloses both roles.

2. Public relations executives said that the government distribution of prepared news segments without on-air disclosures of their origin was a bipartisan practice that predated the Bush administration.  The Clinton administration was probably even more active than the Bush administration" in distributing news segments promoting its policies . . . After the Government Accountability Office decision last spring [that the administration had violated a law against unauthorized federal propaganda by distributing television news segments that promoted drug enforcement policies without identifying their origin], he said, his firm began advising government clients to disclose each tape's nature in its script.

Everyone does/did it, huh? Probably won't be much of "a thing" after all.

Update II:   A fiery and righteous La Shawn Barber has inspired us and convinced us the scandal is, indeed "a thing" -- not only because the left will use it as a weapon of choice to bash Bush, but even more importantly because the right half of the blogosphere won't let either Armstrong Williams or the administration get away with it:

There are more important events going on in the world, to be sure, but for the next few months, the blogosphere will be buzzing about this. Williams is about to find out what Trent Lott, Howard Raines and Dan Rather learned. The noise of the blogosphere is deafening. Its pace is quick, its influence is far-reaching and its wrath is damaging.

My final word to readers on this subject: if we believe we’re on the side of good, we must maintain honesty and integrity. Character is what you are when nobody’s looking. Be neither liars nor hypocrites. Tell the truth and practice what you preach.

Amen, Sister.