Back of the Envelope

This makes me feel disappointed all around:

The White House said Monday that the case of the Education Department paying a conservative commentator to plug its policies was an isolated incident, not a practice widely used by the Bush administration.

With the Education Department still defending its $240,000 contract with syndicated columnist and TV personality Armstrong Williams, White House spokesman Scott McClellan was cautious in choosing his comments.
...
The contract required Williams' company to produce radio and TV spots featuring one-minute "reads" by Education Secretary Rod Paige and to allow Paige and other department officials to appear as studio guests with Williams. The commentator also was to use his influence with other black journalists to get them to discuss No Child Left Behind, a centerpiece of President Bush's domestic agenda, which aims to raise achievement among poor and minority children and penalizes many schools that don't make progress.

Williams claims that he did and still does believe in the No Child Left Behind Policy, and that the money did not influence his opinion. I'm not familiar with Williams, so I can't comment on him. I do like Bush and I've liked some of the things Rod Paige has said in the past, but this really does make me feel ill. On the surface, there's nothing illegal about what happened. The radio and TV spots themselves don't sound as if they're even unethical, although Williams should have disclosed that he was being paid by the Education Department to produce them. However, requiring him to have certain guests and try to influence other journalists doesn't sound good. My gut reaction is that the Education Department shouldn't have asked and that Williams shouldn't have agreed to those conditions, although I'd be hard-pressed to tell you exactly why. I am absolutely certain, however, that if you're going to agree to something like that, you owe it to your audience to tell them about it. Check out La Shawn Barber's reaction for some serious righteous anger.

This has brought up a lot of questions about whether bloggers can or should accept money, both in order to present certain opinions or to work as paid or unpaid consultants on campaigns. Believe it or not, I have a policy on this, although it has yet to be needed. I won't say that I wouldn't accept money if someone did offer me money to espouse an opinion I agreed with. Heck, if they offered me money to write in support of an idea I disagreed with, I'd at least ask how much. I will, however, disclose that I have been paid to do so, and will not accept any contract where I'm not allowed to disclose that information. Meanwhile, if anyone wishes to make such an offer, Amazon will accept your payments. (Be sure to click the option to e-mail me on the thank you page so I know who the money's from.)