- WASHINGTON -- U.S. President
George W. Bush vowed yesterday that his administration will stop paying
newspaper columnists and pundits to back its policies after the second
right-wing commentator in a month acknowledged receiving a contract from
a government agency to help promote one of its policies.
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- "All our cabinet secretaries must realize that we
will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda," Mr. Bush told
reporters. "Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its two feet."
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- The President spoke a day after Maggie Gallagher, a conservative
columnist and president of her own marriage institute, divulged that she
had been paid $21,500 (U.S.) by the Health and Human Services Administration
to promote Mr. Bush's $300-million marriage initiative.
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- The marriage initiative is a program designed to encourage
traditional marriage as a way of helping low-income families. Her work
included writing an essay promoting marriage that was published in a Roman
Catholic magazine under the byline of Wade Horn, the government's assistant
secretary for children and families.
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- As the same time, Ms. Gallagher was writing newspaper
columns and appearing on television talk shows, lauding the marriage initiative.
In a 2004 newspaper column, she said the policy's price tag was "a
tiny fraction of what we spend to deal with the social problems created
by high rates of illegitimacy and divorce. You know what costs really big
bucks? Having one-third of babies born outside of marriage."
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- In another column, written for the on-line edition of
the conservative National Review magazine, she praised the initiative and
said it would "carry big payoffs down the road for taxpayers and children."
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- The disclosure of Ms. Gallagher's contract came only
two weeks after Armstrong Williams, another right-wing commentator, acknowledged
receiving a $241,000 contract from the Education Department to promote
the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind" policy by producing
TV and radio ads supporting the policy.
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- When confronted by The Washington Post about her contract,
Ms. Gallagher initially seemed uncertain whether she had violated journalistic
ethics by not advising her readers she was on the government's payroll.
But she apologized later in the day, saying in a column that that "it
never occurred to me" to disclose the contract.
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- Mr. Horn, the official for whom Ms. Gallagher worked,
insisted that his department had not paid her to write columns promoting
the marriage initiative.
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- "What we wanted to do was use her expertise,"
he said.
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- In addition to the article for Mr. Horn, Ms. Gallagher
also wrote a report titled Can Government Strengthen Marriage? for which
she is reported to have received another $20,000, paid indirectly by the
Justice Department.
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- Disclosure that the two commentators have been on the
government payroll is of particular interest because of the growing power
of right-wing talk radio stations and television networks, which have played
a major role in building and sustaining support for Mr. Bush's conservative
agenda.
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- There "needs to be a nice independent relationship
between the White House and the press, the administration and the press,"
Mr. Bush acknowledged yesterday.
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- Separately yesterday, a report made public by Democratic
members of the House of Representatives committee on government reform
said Mr. Bush's administration spent $88-million last year on contracts
with public-relations agencies, more than double the amount spent in 2000,
the final year of former president Bill Clinton's administration.
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- A spokeswoman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
said the disclosures represent "a troubling blurring of the lines
between journalism and advocating the policies of the President."
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