First Armstrong Williams was caught red-handed taking tax money to work for the Bush campaign. Then, anti-gay activist Maggie Gallagher was outed. Add another to the list – Michael McManus has been paid off to promote Bush’s Healthy Marriage Initiative. From Salon (via Daily Kos):

The problem springs from the failure of both Gallagher and McManus to disclose their government payments when writing about the Bush proposals. But one HHS critic says another dynamic has led to the controversy, and a blurring of ethical and journalistic lines: Horn and HHS are hiring advocates – not scholars – from the pro-marriage movement. “They’re ideological sympathizers who propagandize,” says Tim Casey, attorney for Legal Momentum, a women’s rights organization. He describes McManus as being a member of the “extreme religious right.”

I think the key is not that these bush-league (ha ha) columnists failed to disclose their payoffs — that’s a problem, and their commentary careers should end — but rather that the Bush administration is so blatantly using the bureaucracy to propagandize. The coverage I have seen so far has been limited to media navel-gazing, a game everyone seems to enjoy. Commentators talking about other commentators. Bill O’Reilly lovingly telling Armstrong Williams “you should have told us,” patting him on the rear and sending him to the showers. Now Salon, “a blurring of ethical and journalistic lines.”

So-called journalists are parrotting Republican talking-points – big deal! What else is new! Does it change their shilling if their paymaster is in a slightly different office than before?

No, the important story here is the direct involvement of the Bush administration in propaganda. “Video news releases” were produced by the Office of National Drug Control, the Office of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Education to promote Bush’s programs, and were run by lazy TV stations as if they were actual news reports. Even the Social Security Administration is up to something. This is only the tip of the iceberg of “covert propaganda.”

As more conservative “journalists” are uncovered to be in the employ of the Bush administration’s propaganda arm, let’s forget about their pitiful careers in whatever cobwebbed corner of the media they lie in, largely unnoticed. We need to keep pressure on the emerging narrative of government propaganda itself. “Journalists” aren’t accountable — but our government should be.