And the administration hit parade continues on:
Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush’s education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.
In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated “covert propaganda” in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.
The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the public relations campaign had been known for months. The report Friday provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities.
Lawyers from the accountability office, an independent nonpartisan arm of Congress, found that the administration systematically analyzed news articles to see if they carried the message, “The Bush administration/the G.O.P. is committed to education.”
The auditors declared: “We see no use for such information except for partisan political purposes. Engaging in a purely political activity such as this is not a proper use of appropriated funds.”
Again, my main reaction is I simply can;t believe they thought this was a good idea. I can’t believe Armstrong took the money, which is degrees less serious than offering it in the first place, but the whole thing just leaves me aghast. It was just stupid, illegal, and well, stupid.
Not to mention Armstrong Williams was already a supporter of vouchers and the Bush education policy. Why pay him at all?
SomeCallMeTim
Everybody knows that Congress is controlled by the libruls, and GAO reports to Congress. Why does Congress hate America?
Jill
“Why did they pay him?”
Because this Administration and their actions continually show they have no respect for laws, precedent or procedure. It is their way or screw you.
John S.
More bad news for Republicans, and yet after Howard Dean’s outrageous criticism of Bill Bennett, I still can’t bring myself to vote for those awful Democrats.
John Cole
And you continue to wonder why I don’t think you are an honest commenter John S.
I have explained to you why I included the Dean comment on Bennett (it was the first DNC/Democrat reaction I found on google and typical of the silly response), yet you continue to take potshots. I am not going to rewrite the post to fit your delicate sensibilities.
And Bennett has nothing to apologize for…
TheocracyIsComing
It was news to me that Bill Bennett even had a radio show. I thought after being exposed as one of the biggest hypocrites ever on the religious right his stock must have sank. However, you can still find Jim Baker and Jimmy Swaggert peddling religion on TV so it shouldn’t have been a surprise he still has a faithful right wing audience.
Bennett’s proposition was stupid (and incomplete) but he clearly said it was a reprehensible idea.
John S.
I wonder about no such thing. In fact, you may be surprised to find that what you think of me is as of little concern to me as what I think of you is to you. Calling my ‘honesty’ into question is a wee bit over the top, don’t you think?
I take potshots – you take potshots.
What the hell more would you expect from this place? After all, I’m just following your lead. Get a thcker skin, like you expect the rest of us to do because I’m just riffing on you.
Jill
You guys are such partisan hacks. Admit it, the statement by Bennett was despicable and your inability to condemn it shows your agreement with it. People like Bennett are a drain on this country.
Tim F
Williams reflects the general administration attitude towards government. That is, federal dollars go to friends and cronies and core support demographics. They paid Williams because that’s what federal money is for. Slush.
John Cole
Jill- Of course the tatement by Bennett was despicable- that is why he used it.
Bennett said, “We don’t do X because x is morally reprehensible.”
You guys react:
“I can’t believe Bennett suggested we do X.”
It is theatre of the absurd.
John S.
Bennett really said, “I believe it is true that if we do X we will get Y, however X is morally reprehensible.”
You react by pretending that Bennett doesn’t believe X would illicit Y because he stated we should never do X.
It’s your theatre John. You helped to create it.
Big E
seems like the wizards curtain in Oz
has been drawn back and the republicans/conservatives are being revealed for what they are, non-compassionate, religious frauds, fiscal frauds, weak foreign policy, weak domestic policy, petty, corrupt, you get the picture….
Sad for me to admit, but, I will enjoy the republican ‘fall from grace’. Not that the dems have any bright people or ideas to offer at the moment.
ppGaz
Paid-for news? Nobody could have anticipated this.
Carry-over of the useless Bennett thread? Nobody could have anticipated this.
Imminent arrival of the Bushmonkeys to the thread? Nobody is anticipating that.
In Bushmonkey world, we live in the moment. We do not anticipate, and we do not remember. What happened yesterday is old news. What happens tomorrow is whatever we say it is. Until it happens, and then it wasn’t.
John Cole
African-Amercians are 12%of the population. They are a much higher percentage of the incarcerated public. Absent any change in policy, any change in external behgaviors, if we did “X,” “Y” (a decrease in the crime rate) would happen.
It isn’t racist, it isn’t evil, it isn’t wrong to point that out. It is just an accurate representation of statistical realities.
Now, if you want to argue that that may not hold because some policies are going to change, other underlying characteristics such as poverty, single motherhood, economic opportunity, and education are going to change and somehow alter the already observed statistical trends, fine.
But at that point, you aren’t arguing that Bennett’s correct extrapolation of trends isn’t evil- you are merely changing the scenario.
Again, Bennett was not making the argument that African-Americans are inherently more likely to dcommitt crime, he was merely examining the data we have. whether African-Americans are more likely to be incarcerated due to the above-listed causes, or merely racism, etc., do not even enter to the debate.
Bennett was responding to a caller who was making a utilitarian argument against abortion, stating we should end abortion to shore up social security. Bennett responded, trying to get people to think, that you do not address moral issues such as abortion with utilitarian arguments.
He then stated, quite accurately, that if you take what is stated in Freakonomics regarding a decrease in crime correlated to availability of abortion, tie that in with the disproportionate level at which Afrcian-Americans are incarcerated and make up a larger percentage of the crime rate, if you merely aborted all black babies, you would havea lower crime rate. Something statistically true, barring some uinforeseen immediate change in policy that that would dramatically lower the black incarceration rate.
In other words, he made a utilitarian argument FOR abortion, and showed that it was morally reprehensible, demonstrating why you don’t make utilitarian arguments over moral issues.
Now I am sorry you folks don’t understand it. I am sorry you folks have never apparently had a stats class, or never apparently had a philosophy course, and I am sorry you have never apparently had an ethics course. I am sorry you are so quick to vilify someone (who I think, quite honestly, is a turd) for things you don’t understand.
I am even sorry he said it, for no other reason than he should have been aware how stupid half the country is.
But I am not backing down no matter how much bullshit you heap on me over this. You are wrong. Period.
John S.
ppGaz-
An interesting perspective. On the relevant topic here, I wonder what is even the point of wondering what the motivation for this was. Is that a mechanism for avoiding the unpleasant reality? It seems that this says it all:
If we add to this to the public memory (if there is any), then it should be taken as a matter of fact – based on actions rather than words – that the Bush administration:
– Does things for partisan political purposes
– Improperly uses appropriated funds
Therefore, any insinuation to the contrary is false. But I suppose that if we all stand around wondering ‘why’ and ‘how’, then the lesson of ‘what’ will never be learned.
Tim F
elicit. Illicit is what Bennett does with the haul after a lucky night at the casino.
…
My first opinion about the Bennett kerfuffle is who gives a shit. The guy hasn’t made a headline in ten years, and seen in a certain light you could call this a desperate plea for attention. I’d prefer that we used the Amish treatment on marginal has-beens crying for attention, but here we go.
My only question is whether he argued that the statement was wrong, or merely that is was impractical/immoral. The latter suggests a poor and race-biased interpretation of statistics, but the Freakonomics author already pointed that out. I won’t be baited into debating the point.
John S.
John-
I understand your position entirely, and it makes perfect sense, if you believe that aborting black children will reduce the crime rate based on current statistical information. That is the statement of fact being made here by Bennet, and supported by you. I don’t think facts are evil, racist, etc., so we can skip all that nonsense.
It would also be a fact that based on current statistical information that if we aborted all Israeli children it will reduce crime in the Middle East. However, I wouldn’t go around crowing about such things in the public square of Tel Aviv with the caveat that I really thought doing so would be wrong.
Tim F
post hoc ergo propter hoc. You would reduce more crime if you abort the children of young, poor, uneducated single parents living bad neighborhoods, because after you control for those variables race no longer correlates with crime.
Seems like a small point? It’s not. On the one hand you have crime caused by race, which doesn’t suggest many solutions. How do you reduce blackness? Bennett has an idea, and barring deportation that’s pretty much all you can do. In other words we might as well shrug our shoulders and resign ourselves to intractable centuries of crime and misery.
Looks like a hopeless situation. We might as well spend our money buying guns and building walls around our neighborhoods. Or not? Steven Levitt:
Frame it like this a solution practically falls into your lap. You can’t reduce blackness, but you can theoretically deal with challenges like poverty, broken families and poor neighborhoods.
You could say that distinction describes the difference between liberal and conservative perspectives in a nutshell. Maybe not entirely fair to conservatives, but what do you expect from a liberal :P
Tim F
BTW, I prefer ASCII smilies. Is there a way to make those cartoons go away?
Com Con
Every administration does this kind of thing, number one. Number two, the press was so hostile to No Child Left Behind that the only way the White House could get someone to do a fair review of it was to pay the person.
This is much more a commentary on the left-wing media bias than on anything bad about the White House.
John S.
Oh, another fact to emerge from this news about the Bush administration:
– Does things for partisan political purposes
– Improperly uses appropriated funds
– Blatantly lies
Official White house Transcript
Tim F
Proof?
ppGaz
Uh, no. It’s only “fair” when the paid spokesman identifies himself as such.
A paid media outlet is known in the trade as a “house organ”. It’s a figure of speech with just enough extra entendre to do the job here.
ppGaz
It’s possible that everyone here gets this, John. After all, it isn’t rocket science, and it isn’t information that only designated Republican bloggers and college professors know about.
Maybe what’s going on here is that people are tired of being jerked around. Maybe they just haven’t caught on to the idea that maybe it’s intentional?
While I am the first to stipulate that correlation is not causation …. it might not be an accident that the people who decry emotional and partisan churn here the most are the ones who always seem to be embroiled in such churn.
Coincidence?
John S.
Classic fallacious argument.
What’s the best way to follow up one fallacious argument? With another one.
KC
I think it’s atrocious that any administration would pay journalists to push their lines of the day. That’s our tax dollars being used to essentially pull the wool over our eyes. History is replete with politicians saying one while doing another, but to me, this is taking things too far. It’s one thing to have partisan news sources skewing the news, say FOX for example (or Maureen Dowd, etc., if we are talking about opinion writing), but it’s another for the government to underhandedly make us pay for the skewering.
Ancient Purple
Great!
So, if I go to my boss and say, “I would never say that you are a fucking incompetent asshole who deserves to have your grave shit on when you die, because that would be wrong,” then I can use your arguement that it is all “theatre of the absurd” when they try to fire me because I never actually said X without Y.
When I do get fired, John, I hope you will put in a good word for me.
KC
Are we still on the Bennett thing?
Com Con
Lay off Dr. Bennett for a minute already. You’re practically foaming at the mouth like Nacny Pelosi. It is interesting that you are so quick to condemn Dr. Bennett when vouchers, yes, the very vouchers that he and Williams are such staunch supporters of, would do wonders for the very inner-city black Americans you accuse him of wanting to massacre.
Ancient Purple
Why not make it all easier and send in Jesus the Staff-Wielding Warrior to clean up the mess, Com?
ppGaz
“Doctor” Bennett, my ass. Nobody calls him that.
Bennett’s problem is that he has big ideas, and can’t communicate them. He’s a frustrated scold, a Bork without the hideous beard and the mass-murderer eyes.
Bennett is an asshole who wants everyone in the world to apologize to him for being misunderstood. It never occurred to this czar of personal resposibility that being understood is his job? If he were as big a man as he thinks he is, he would just own up to the fact that he made a damned fool mistake, and move on.
He isn’t that big a man, but he will back away from what he said. He has no choice, because he will never be heard on any subject again until he does.
As I said yesterday, tough shit for him. Couldn’t happen to a shittier guy.
Com Con
He has a Ph.D. in philosophy from University of Texas. I thought liberals loved academics. I guess they only like them when they’re spewing left-wing hate, not engaging in rigorous though.
Off Colfax
And why does it not occur to folks that, should the educational system have been properly funded in the first place, this big voucher plan would not have been needed? But instead, education spending was the one that fell by the wayside after the big tax cuts of the 70’s and 80’s.
Restore the spending on education, by state, federal, and local authorities, to the pre-1972 levels. Restore the student loan benefits to college students who intend to recieve their teacher’s certification. Restore the funding to build new schools in areas that have overcrowded classrooms.
These were all programs in place during the glory days of American public education. And they worked well.
Fix what was broken, then, should the system still not work, adjust from the original baseline that all assumptions of a “good school system” are based on. That is what should have been done in the first place.
ppGaz
Like I said, nobody calls him that.
For a guy with a PhD, he certainly is a stupid motherfucker.
Mac Buckets
That statement is the biggest cop-out in Freakonomics (which I enjoyed a great deal). By opting to control for various traits that act as a proxy for race, Levitt pretends that the race issue disappears. Yet he doesn’t address the strong correlations to those proxy factors and race. Occam’s Razor would indicate that, since race correlates so strongly to the other factors, race is probably the most relevant “master factor.” Levitt wussed out (deliberately — the guy’s a genius and the problem here is obvious) in an attempt to get published what might be offensive to some.
Mac Buckets
Yeah, money’s the problem. Just give the schools more money. Just load up a big pile of money, and drop it on the school boards. That will solve everything, just like it always has. Blech — I just vomited in my mouth a little there.
John Cole
Yeah. No one calls him Dr. Bennett.
You may not, but plenty of people do. Furthermore you are just wrong about this:
That people fail to understand or pretend to not understand a perfectly clear and cogent argument is not Bennett’s fault. He couldn’t have been more clear. And Bennett, to my knowledge, is demanding people apologize to him. He is just refusing to apologize to people who don’t know their ass from a whole in the ground.
Com Con
Mac, that is a good use of Occam’s razor to show that race it the overriding factor in crime rates. The liberals here seem ignorant of both statistics and of general rhetorical reasoning. Well, what can you expect from those who think that thousands of new jobs each month is a “weak economy”.
Off Colfax
So what you’re saying is that these funding cuts have made the schools more efficient, better at teaching, and safer? Not from the evidence, I’m afraid. There’s a direct correlation between the budget cuts and deteriorating school performance. Just look at the numbers. It’s all right there.
jobiuspublius
Cole, since you are advancing a numerical arguement, would care to show us your math?
Mac Buckets and Com Con – too bad you have no sense of history , fail to see what an ill defined concept race is, and that the exploitation of race is largely economic which makes poverty(a much more easily defined and numerical condition) the more fruitfull view. But, I guess you enjoy being mired in the past. How’s it working for you?
ppGaz
Right, of course. The man is not responsible for making himself understood. Got it.
No, I am right about what I said, and you are wrong.
Sorry. Your argument is not convincing.
John Cole
Fortunately, the criteria for whether or not an argue is true and sound is not whether or not those who choose not to be convinced find the argument ‘convincing.’
jobiuspublius
I’m still waiting for some statistician to prove his defense of Benetts arguement, whatever that was.
Ancient Purple
Right, because the elementary and secondary schools teaching profession is so financially lucrative already.
ppGaz
Well, when you are having a class, and can invoke the argument by fiat, sure. But this is not a class, and I am not a student.
Allow me to revisit an argument I made yesterday, with a slight revision:
Eh?
Being the stickler for details that you are when it’s convenient, you’ll of course note that I am not hanging all this around YOUR neck. Rather, it’s the whimsical approach taken by your Bushmonkey commentariat with which I have the issue. But if you want to stick up for them, that’s up to you. Blood thicker than water, and all that.
Com Con
How is William Armstrong any different from Bill Moyer? Moyer takes money from PBS to promote an anti-government message. Why shouldn’t Mr. Armstrong take government money to promote a pro-government message?
John Cole
Actually, being a stickler for details, I will note you had no problem with Durbin’s remarks, but all of a sudden grew a case of the stupids regarding Bennett.
No doubt due to Bennett’s political affiliation.
John Cole
Com COn is Doug J. I thought everyone knew that.
jobiuspublius
Com Con, that is incorrect and over simplified.
jobiuspublius
ROFLMAO. The DougJ angle is more clever. Stop dumbing it down Commie Connie.
Com Con
John, I’m actually someone using DougJ’s computer while he leaves it unattended.
ppGaz
Nice try, but you should pay more attention. I haven’t called Bennett a racist, or shrieked about crime stats, have I?
I just said (a) that he’s an asshole, which is not that different from what you called him yesterday, and (b) said that he deserves the shitstorm he has stirred up, because he is an arrogant fool, and (c) he is responsible for the reaction to what he said.
A case of the stupids? Heh, if you say so, John.
A case of just saying what’s obvious, IMO, and I’ll stand on that.
You know, when Dean did the scream that nobody in the room heard, but was picked up by a tv mike and made to sound like something crazy, you know what his reaction was?
“I did it. I own it. Maybe it was over the top. I was trying to pump up 3,500 kids who gave me three weeks of their lives, and I’m not a perfect person. But, my attitude is, that’s done.” (ABC television)
That’s what a real man does when he makes a mistake, John.
We shall have to wait and see what the fat, arrogant slob Bill Bennett does now.
John Cole
Bennett… DID… NOT… DO… ANYTHING… TO… APOLOGIZE… FOR…
ppGaz
Hahaha. Let’s wait and see if HE thinks so.
I’m still taking bets. 2:3 Apology on the tote board.
jobiuspublius
Neither did Dean.
KC
Oddly, Bennett’s argument has been used before–against Ronald Reagan. William T. Bagley, a legislator (and Republican) I had to interview concerning a policy issue, co-sponsored California’s first legalized abortion law, signed by Ronald Reagan. He told me that when Reagan was talking about all the wellfare money he saved the state in the early seventies, he never mentioned the fact that part of the savings were due in part to the availability of abortions to lower class women. He said when there were hearings in the legislature on budget issues, that was one thing several experts testifying agreed upon. He said that was something he and other opponents of Reagan (by the 1970s, Reagan’s popularity had shrunk) liked to point out when doing press interviews. Just a little fire to add to the mix.
ppGaz
Com Con is a Fascist.
(Doug, just trying to help you out.)
John S.
You are right. He didn’t do anything, but he did say something that was incredibly stupid for a public figure to say.
Furthermore, I think it is true that if you aborted every baby in West Virginia, the child poverty rate in this country would go down – if that were your sole purpose. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your child poverty rate would go down.
It’s a statistical fact.
Darrell
It’s hilarious to see how so many dim-witted leftists actually think. Certain races are poor, not because of choices they made, but because of economic “exploitation”. How then to explain the success of other non-white americans like Chinese Americans, who earn more on average than whites?
Darrell
Assuming poverty trends remained constant, that is an entirely true statement. And your point is?
ppGaz
Darrell: Never met a point he couldn’t miss.
Darrell
Back to thread topic, whoever made the decision to pay Armstrong Williams is an idiot, plain and simple.. no two ways about it. Not only was it an abuse of taxpayer money, it was unbelievably stupid. On a related note, I’ve never thought much of A.Williams…he’s definitely no Larry Elder. Something about him is not right.. he seems insincere and/or not too intelligent.. his points are almost always too caricatured. He sounds like DougJ doing parody.
Com Con
That, ppgaz, is an insult to my italian heritage.
a guy called larry
Is this the Armstrong thread, or Bennett? Bennett shouldn’t have to apologize for saying something really, really stupid. However, it should follow him around as much as John Lennon’s “the Beatles are prolly more popular than Jesus” quote stuck to him. It’s only fair.
As for paying Armstrong to espouse an opinion he already held, I think the administration was acting like Ripley in the movie ‘Aliens.’ How to get rid of the aliens? “Nuke the site from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.”
ppGaz
That’s what I was goin’ for!
TallDave
I really don’t understand how they can be this stupid.
The mind boggles.
ppGaz
You’re easy.
CaseyL
Tim F. nailed it: to neo-cons in general, and to Bush Crowd in particular, the only legitimate purpose of federal funds is to reward one’s followers (and punish one’s opponents). It follows naturally from the “l’etat c’est moi” attitude with which Bush has enlivened US politics.
Tim F
Mac buckets,
One could read your response as a cop-out. By equating a series of proxies for race, you allow yourself to attribute pejorative characteristics to a race when other factors are in fact responsible.
Mac Buckets
Ignore Occam’s Razor much?
Besides, I’m not attributing any characteristics to anyone (statistical databases, including ones used by Levitt, do that well enough), nor do I define any of the mentioned characteristics as “perjorative” — that’s all you.
(tongue-in-cheek)We could similarly argue that all races are equally adept at basketball, if we control for factors like affinity for hip-hop and R&B, a history of wearing a high-top fade, and a one-nighter with Madonna.(tongue out of cheek)
Tim F
True story, in the early 20th century everybody took it for granted that jewish people had a genetic gift for basketball. Want to know why that is?
It sounds to me as though your argument starts with a conclusion and works backwards. In case you’re curious we call your fallacy post hoc ergo propter hoc. I have had more statistics training than you have and, without risking appeal to inappropriate authority I can tell you that you don’t understand multiple regressions if you think that Levitt made a mistake.
Funniest of all, you claim that there’s nothing ‘pejorative’ about a racial propensity to commit crime. That sound you hear is baby Jesus dry-heaving.
Mac Buckets
Because brothers weren’t allowed to play (recalling Michael Jordan’s “Sweet River Baines” sketch on SNL where he singlehandedly dominates the Globetrotters, so they fire him)? Besides, I said “adept,” not genetically gifted.
Not so. My argument is that by excluding factors that act as a proxy for race (like my basketball example), Levitt can pretend that race factors are non-existent. By refusing even to discuss the overwhelming correlations between race and those control factors (income, the likelihood of growing up in a female-headed household, having a teenage mother, and how urban the environment is), he’s being dishonest, or in the very least, incomplete. I’d like to hear you explain why you don’t find this troubling as well.
No, I meant there was nothing pejoritive about “income, the likelihood of growing up in a female-headed household, having a teenage mother, and how urban the environment is.”
Darrell
How the hell would you know how much statitics training he has had you jackass?
Some races, on average, commit more crimes. Blacks for example. Other races on average commit less crimes. Japanese for example. Leftists are the only ones injecting prejudicial motives here
whatsleft
That, Darrell, is a statement any 1930’s National Socialist could get behind. WTG!
Hippie Doug J
I still say WITHOUT apology if we could simply abort all white male republican fetuses then there would be NO more corporate crimes like Enron.