This just in: Bush corrupts media

Again, though I strongly disagree with the Bush administration's policies most of the time, it is not his policies alone that make him so dangerous to the America I believe is the lighthouse of liberty to the rest of the world. It is the way he promotes them, the way he gets them passed, his belief in secrecy when Democracy feeds on openess and finally, the way he believes reality can be altered by corrupting the soul of critical thought in America - the media.

Time and time again, Bush and Rove have stuffed our airwaves and therefore our heads with lies by manipualting the media. Now, USA Today reports they paid pundits to promote No Child Left Behind.

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

This is nothing new for the administration. They used the same techniques to produce deceptive advertising to promote the Medicare Reform Bill. A "newscast" featuring actors disguised as journalists extolled the virtues of the bill. There was no qualification anywhere in the piece as to the source of the "news."

There is nothing - nothing - more destructive to the fabric of our society than the cancer of stealth propaganda. There is not a line of truth this adminstration will not cross to achieve its ends. The ends themselves may be benign. They may be despicable. In either case, the end result is an uniformed truth-allergic citizenry that is susceptible to large scale manipulation - particularly when a toxic stew of fear and lies is mainlined into the public consciousness through the needle of the media.

UPDATE: Kudos to Rep. Henry Waxman-D (CA) for pushing the issue on yet another example of Bush's the ends-justifies-the-means style:

Bush's Drug Videos Broke Law, Accountability Office Decides

Now let's see some indictments.