Maggie Gallagher is making a tactical error. She's now taking issue with Kurtz's original piece in the WaPo about her taking of money from the Bush administration. She says:
"On January 26, 2005, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post wrote that I 'had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the President's proposal.'
"To me, this is an extremely serious charge. It is also completely false. I was not paid to promote the President's marriage proposal. In 2001 I was approached by HHS to do research and writing, not on the President's $300 million marriage initiative, but on marriage: specifically four brochures on the social-science evidence on the benefits of marriage for populations serviced by HHS (such as unwed parents), a draft of an essay for Wade Horn, and a training presentation on the social-science evidence on the benefits of marriage for regional HHS managers.
I'm surprised that a republican is making this mistake, actually. The more her name is in the news, the more there will be headlines that compare her to Armstrong Williams, the more there will be headlines that say something like "Second" or "Another" "columnist took administration money." Anything she does, other than stick to her non-apology apology ('sorry if anyone was offended') will keep the story alive and reinforce the notion in people's mind that the administration pays its pundits.
Kurtz responded:
"It's too bad that Maggie Gallagher, in the process of apologizing for her mistake, has seen fit to blame the messenger. My story made quite clear that her work at HHS included writing brochures for the President's marriage initiative, ghostwriting a magazine article for a top official, and briefing other department officials on the issue. That sure sounds like promotion to me, but none of this would be a media controversy had Ms. Gallagher disclosed the contract in her writing trumpeting the Bush marriage plan."
Kurtz is right, of course. She was promoting a government program. Let's look at what she was doing:
The essay Gallagher drafted appeared under [HHS official Wade] Horn's byline -- with the headline "Closing the Marriage Gap" -- and ran in Crisis magazine, which promotes humanism rooted in Catholic Church teachings.
Can anyone tell me seriously that that's not promotion? Why else would you run an essay in a magazine, supposedly by a government official, if not to promote a program?
And surely, if she writes an essay for the government, then says the same thing in a column without disclosing it, there's the appearance of impropriety. It's the sort of thing that people just don't do. It would be like a Supreme Court justice going duck-hunting with someone whose case he's about to hear.
Most of all, it gives people like me a chance to keep writing about how corrupt the Bush administration is. In case I haven't made it clear, they're really corrupt. See how corrupt they are? They paid someone else to promote their politicies.
So, Maggie, here's what I suggest. You should learn from your smarter and less scrupulous colleagues on the right. You've already issues a non-apology apology. Next, return the money, or better yet, donate it and more to a kid's charity. Say that you're going to refuse any other government work. Or that that if you accept government work, you'll leave your column while you're doing it. Have a friend of yours dig up a story about some blogger doing something that is not at all the same. Gracefully decline to comment. Make several emotional TV appearances in which you try to sound victimized and emotionally drained, while never straying from your non-apology apology. Then go back to your column and don't ever mention it again.
Sure, you'll still have to live with your unscrupulous behavior; but that, my dear, is part of being a republican.
-- Michael
your last line is precious! Keep that one for the archives. Put it at the top of your blog.
Posted by: the exile | January 27, 2005 at 12:31 PM
I agree that the people at HHS who pay "journalists" to promote their propaganda should be outed, prosecuted if possible, and punished.
As far as "unscrupulous behavior" of republicans, let me comment on what I find unscrupulous. Using the IRS to forcefully take billions of dollars away from one group (medium&high earners) and giving it to another group (low/zero earners)
That is theft. Democratic theft.
Posted by: Buckshot | January 27, 2005 at 05:09 PM
ya know what i find unscrupulous? causing a war that kills 1400 Americans and countless iraqi civilians for no apparent reason.
but we could go back and forth all night. if you have a real argument, make it. it seems that you don't, because you're response, above, is essentially, 'yeah, maggie gallagher is bad, but democrats do something unrelated that i also don't like.'
why is that republicans don't make arguments? this really mystifies me. i wrote a post about a very clear subject, and you responded by saying 'you're right, but here's something different that i feel like complaining about.' how do you expect to convince anyone with that kind of rhetoric? i suspect you don't really want to convince anyone, which is fine i suppose. but why bother commenting if what you have is not really a comment so much as a 'i feel like talking about something that bothers me' kind of thing.
Posted by: here's what's left | January 27, 2005 at 05:23 PM
HWL,
I will try to honestly answer your question.
Yes, I understand that you think going to war in Iraw was unscrupulous. I think so too. I hope it's okay if I agree with you.
I also agreed that the HHS bureaurats who paid Maggie Gallagher should be fired/prosecuted. And I'd like to see her ass kicked, too.
The rest of my commentary was in response to your last statement that "unscrupulous was synonymous with "republican".
The republicans pull some unscrupulous crap, to be sure. Paying "journalists" to publish propoganda is just one of them. By the way I see Ted K and another senator have introduced legislation to prevent further such abuses.
I hope I was straight-forward. I try to be concise, blunt, honest, and to use logic. I am sincere and I am always interested to try to understand lefty logic.
Usually I find lefty logic to be based on anger, hatred, and envy. I'm too old to be angry. I don't hate anyone. And I'm not envious of anyone.
Your blog would be pretty boring if you just had the five regulars bashing bush and the republican bastards all the time, with nothing but the fable "Robin Hood" and lefty blogs for references, and emotion for fuel.
I'm just trying to inject a bit of logic into the discussions.
Posted by: Buckshot | January 27, 2005 at 06:33 PM
Ooops. I apologize for again not proof reading. I meant...
"unscrupulous" was synonymous with "republican".
And the misspelling on 'propaganda' jumps out at me. Ouch.
Posted by: Buckshot | January 27, 2005 at 06:37 PM
buckshot,
you're welcome to inject whatever logic you see fit into the discussion. and when i think your logic is not, in fact, logic, i'll feel free to say so, and so will my readers. and you're welcome to agree or disagree with anything i say. if you think the iraq war was immoral, i applaud you and encourage you to convince your conservative friends.
as for this blog, i don't claim to be a journalist, or anything other than a guy with an opinion. i try to be intellectually honest, and i back up what i say. and if i sound angry, and if my readers sound angry, it's because we are.
the reason i'm focusing on this maggie gallagher thing isn't hard to figure out. many of us on the left are constantly frustrated by the right-wing media machine. by the hannitys, limbaughs, coulters, "fair and balanced," never engaging in a real debate, not acknowledging factual information, repeating the same tired lies ("john kerry is the #1 librul in the US senate") calling us traitors. remember that time that ann coulter said about iraq "it's pretty safe over there." that was fun.
so when it turns out that the right-wing dominated government, elected because a majority of the republican party thinks that saddam was involved in 9/11 because they watch too much fox news, is giving some of my tax dollars to someone to sell its ideological agenda, you'll forgive me for making a point of mentioning the utter hypocrisy of the party of moral values as often as i can.
Posted by: here's what's left | January 28, 2005 at 01:53 AM
HWL,
It's good that you can admit you're angry. I rarely get angry anymore, except when people endanger me on the road. I seem to really draw it out of some of these blog participants though.
In my last years of high school I was pretty angry, with the possiblity of being drafted to Vietnam staring me in the face. Many of us felt that way. Many others couldn't wait to go there and kick some ass - kill gooks. I have always wondered what it is that makes a young man choose the path he chooses.
After 9-11, there was a frenzy of patriotism, guys driving around with big flags flapping from poles bolted to their trucks, little Chinese- made flags being passed out free everywhere you went, angy people contorting their faces in emotion and saying "I support our troops" everywhere I turned.
On our local forum , I had the audacity to question some of these ultra-patriotic folks about their desire to go into Iraq and kick ass and take names. I pointed out that the majority of the hijackers were Saudis, and we were sleeping with the Saudis, and had been for two generations.
When they ranted and raved about how Sadaam used chemicals on his "own people" (they meant the Kurds)I asked them...
1) "Where did Sadaam purchase the chemicals from which to make the weapons?"
2) Didn't the people who sold Iraq the chemicals know what they were being used for?
3) What large US companies might have profited form those large sales of dangerous chemicals to Iraq?
You cannot imagine the vitriol and anger these questions aroused.
A childhood chum named Bob started giving me this patriotism crap. I pointed out to Bob....
1) I understand you listen to Rush, and don't read much about current events.
2) I was there when we graduated, I don't remember you enlisting in the Army - instead we drank beer together and chased girls.
3) I realize you work for a weapons manufacturer and have a vested interest in making implements of death.
He responded that he had always been patriotic - his sis was in the Air Force in Afghanistan, his Uncle had been in WW2, His Dad in Korea, and his other uncle in Vietnam....
I said "Bob, that's great" Two of my ancestors were in the Civil War, my Dad was a marine in Korea, etc. What does that have to do with the US attacking Iraq?
Then he shifted gears... He said he works for a weapons manufacturer because he's patriotic....
etc etc.
So Michael, (are you Michael?) as time goes by I have made several observation I'd like to share with you. First, after the war became a quagmire (this war) many of the forum readers turned around and became anti-war. Their intitial patriotism had vanished as they realized we were looking at years of kids coming home in wheelchairs with no arms, I guess.
My conservative buddy Bob is undaunted, however. He is one of the people you probably are thinking of when you say "a conservative". He likes Rush, he doesn't read the paper much, he buys 'Shotgun News' and 'Guns & Ammo', he has a lot of guns, he works at a weapons plant, he is a Catholic (albeit a slacker, he doesn't like "fags", and he's of average/below average IQ.
Remember, Michael, half of the people are below average IQ. Is it okay to say that? Is it okay to acknowledge that, intellectually? Of those half, many are like my friend Bob. They were raised to believe in God and church. They get angry. They work and pay taxes and curse the deadbeats.
Also, in that same group of lower than average folks, you have millions who could not tell you what party George Bush belongs to. Who don't know where the "middle east" is. They don't know the names of any of their congressmen. They don't know the difference between deficit and debt. Never heard of Rwanda. Think television was invented hundreds of years ago. Think poor people pay a higher percentage of income taxes than rich people. Think tax cuts are a tangible pile of cash, rather than a decrease in a rate of taxation.
There is an awful lot of really bizarre reasoning going on out there. Sometimes it comes from folks who are in the upper IQ group. They've just been exposed to a different method of "reasoning" for many years. Like David.
David is clearly an intellignent, wellspoken man. Yet he thinks the government should forcefully confiscate all or most of the wealth of the creative, productive members of our society. Why? Because he's been conditioned by years of lefty babble about THE EVIL RICH. They are sort of the opposit of THE EVIL EMPIRE.
Now, for your comments on Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh... Michael these people are very, very, very intelligent. They are SELLING, SELLING, SELLING their messages, books, magazines, newsletters, etc to folks like my friend Bob.
Drudge is another type of salesman who merely provides a bulletin board for a variety of commentators and news stories. The news stories lean right, of course. Most of the writers do too. (A few exceptions Molly Ivans, David Broder, Eleanor Clift, and others)
You don't find many lefty versions of Rush, though. Franken, maybe. I can't eally think of any who are very successful.
It's incorrect of you to state that these people are "not acknowldeging factual information". The very reason they are so successful is that they are so damned blunt and honest. Do they ignore the good points of the opposition? sure. Do they cover their asses when they make mistakes? You bet.
Let me give you just a handful of examples of factual information that is ACKNOWLEDGED by the righties, but is refuted by the lefties. (usually accompanied by much namecalling - bigot! - homophobe! - racist! - and worse)
1) the bottom half of wager earners pay almost zero dollars in income taxes. (look it up - they bottom half only pays about four percent of the total)
2) For years, we heard about budget cuts in education, yet the actual budgets were increasing each year. The Dem trick here was to "propose" a large increase, and then reduce "cut" the increase. Thus a cut in the headlines and ABC,CBS,NBC stories...
3) Clinton's administration ran at a deficit, just as those before & after. He merely raided the $80 to $100 billion excess into the SS "trust fund" each year, and replaced it with treasury bonds. (borrowed it) This is known as "off budget". Yet we still hear about Clinton having a budget surplus. Never did.
4) Affirmative action in college admissions. Most black kids cannot compete without a helping hand in college. They drop out like flies, after being "helped" into college. No one is there to help them take the test. So they flunk out. This is especially true where math or analytical reasoning is required. Obviously, for journalism or basket weaving, they do fine.
I could list another hundred.
Do I like Coulter, Rush, Hannity? No. Not at all. They all grate on my nerves, but so does Jesse Jacksnon, Ted Kennedy, Hillary, and many other very smart Liberals. They are all doing the same thing, Michael; selling their product to the dummies. If you want to talk ethics, I can tell you a story that will blow your f**ing mind about ethics. But I've gone long.
Posted by: Buckshot | January 28, 2005 at 03:25 PM
Ouch.
Nice of you to acknowldge that conservatives have been led down a false line of reasoning on the war. There is some hope for you. Too bad you are stuck in this racist classist rut. I guess your insight hits a brick wall whenever someone pushes your buttons. Keep trying, you might get over it some day.
Posted by: Cheryl | January 28, 2005 at 05:22 PM
A suggestion, BuckNaked,
The next time you decide to go off on a racist rant, provide links that document your assertions.
The problem with your statement is that it is already well-known that blacks labor under pervasive discrimination, the primary effect of which is poverty. Correcting this pervasive bias in society is exactly the purpose of affirmative action. If you cannot show any data that proves that a) blacks indeed flunk out at a rate that is disproportionately higher than Chinese and b) the data is statistically normalized for household income then you have just implicated yourself as a racist bigot.
Likewise, if you are going to rant on the poor, provide some data that shows why poor people are less capable of spending money wisely than rich people are, and explain it in terms that identify the root cause of the discrepancy and how you propose to address it. Merely stating that poor people waste money without acknowledging that it is in fact their poverty that makes it difficult for them to manage their lives efficiently leaves everyone with the impression that you support institutionalizing a caste system that locks people into their heritage of poverty permanently. Proposing that we give even more financial incentives to the rich in order to help poor people just paints you as an unabashed corporatist.
Posted by: Cheryl | January 28, 2005 at 06:42 PM