Yes, there’s something flaky about a guy with a radio show taking money to push a bill, even if most of the money is for commercials that are obviously commercials. Anytime money changes hands for message there’s something shady. All advertising is suspect.
But why are the complaints limited to conservatives like Williams and the Thune bloggers when it’s obvious to anybody with half a brain that Atrios, Josh Marshall, Markos, and Oliver Willis are absolute and total whores of the Democratic Party?
Josh Marshall’s infamous Strom Thurmond/Trent Lott campaign was a project of the DNC, where Carville carried the orders to Marshall to proceed. Markos and the rest of the lefty blogosphere are paid handsomely (OK, except for Willis who’s probably cost-effective) to shill, tout, spin, lie, or whatever it takes to advance a policy interest and a set of candidates.
So what did Williams do that was so god-awful exciting? Everybody knows he’s conservative who’s worked for Clarence Thomas and Strom Thurmond. Everybody knows he’s black. So he’s obviously an important asset in the Republican consciousness-raising effort on education, where the task is to show blacks that the Democratic Party will never educate their children properly because they’re whores to the Teachers’ Union.
If the issue is the tax money, my god that’s pretty damn lame. Tax money flows into the pockets of advocates every day under such noble causes as the Violence Against Women Act and nobody complains.
I’m trying real hard to honor these complaints, but I’m having a hard time getting over the idea that Democrats are caught in their traditional hatred of black conservatives. Maybe I shouldn’t have read racist Democrat Steve Gilliard:
Brother, them white folks is gonna jump up on your ass like you were a trampoline. You’ll be lucky to avoid jail. The conservative lynching is already starting.
It’s like that line from Trading Places: “Of course I would never let a nigger run our company” Well, of course, if Williams is a crook, they would never defend his lying nigger ass.
Josh Marshall asked who else is taking payments from the White House.
He would, wouldn’t he?
So help me out, outraged liberals, show me the beef.
UPDATE: See Williams’ apology and clarification here. Not surprisingly, the reporting on this fiasco has been biased.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Dan Flynn is not impressed by Williams’ apology, which he finds disingenuous, and neither is LaShawn Barber.
Oh, Richard, first of all, it’s not government money that lefty bloggers are getting.
And secondly, I thought Gilliard’s posts on the subject, well, hilarious in parts, as well as NRO’s inability to figure it out.
Whether a white person could get away with Gilliard’s text is another question, but I’m glad at least Gilliard posted his stuff.
Advocacy groups and individuals are paid off with Government money all the time, John, there’s nothing new about this practice; both VAWA and the children’s health care intitiative have this going on. So we can’t really attack Williams on this basis, as much as we might like to.
The difference is that advocacy groups aren’t paid both by commercial media (as Williams was) and the government.
Of course, if Michael Jackson’s hands wern’t so, uh, full, maybe he could have helped out the government here…
BTW, you left off “Powerline.”
NOW is paid by the government and by all sorts of other sources, John. If you want to attack the system of government payoffs to advocates, attack all of them, not just the black conservative ones.
And no, Powerline is not paid by the government.
NOW is paid by the government to shill which Bush policy?
And, in MN, at least Powerline is the Republican Party. link
NOW collects millions of dollars each year from the Violence Against Women Act, ostensibly for providing training.
And no, Powerline is not any political party, it’s three guys with a perspective.
Powerline is 3 guys with a perspective, who are rather closely related to the leadership of the Republican Party in MN.
And NOW is, as I recall, a 501c(3)which isn’t the same thing as an Armstrong Williams…
You’re writing non sequiturs again.
NOW has both 501.c.3 and 501.c.4 arms; the NOW LDEF is the former and larger NOW is the latter.
BTW, Atrios weighs in on the difference.
BTW, it seems Williams isn’t just a “black conservative,” apparently he’s a closetted gay “black conservative.”
Again, I say it’s really quite a niche. I wouldn’t think that the White House cared enough about the DL set to court them with “No Child Left Behind.”
So now John K. wants to silence gays?
So now you?re for silencing gays?
I don’t know where you got that.
Why would I want to “silence” Williams? He’s the Jacko of righ-wing punditry. Or maybe black right wing punditry. I think either Ann Coulter or John Fund has sewn up the “Jacko in General” title.
Thanks for sharing, don’t forget to take your meds.
I thought that was my line.