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Speaking of hypocrites

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Disagreeable

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Remember Armstrong Williams, the commentator who was found to have taken over $200,000 from the Bush Administration to push their agenda on his "unbiased" talk show? He has an article at NewsMax. It's ""Media Bias Continues to Deceive Americans". I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

For those who don't remember (or chose not to remember) Armstrong was one of three "journalists" that were found to have been paid by the Bush Bunch to push their agenda on TV or in their newscolumns.

""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.

The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004."


http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-01-06-williams-whitehouse_x.htm

More here:

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=327897
 
Yeah, dis - I remember Williams. Here is his apology for what he did. It's interesting to note that while what he did was not against the law, it was unethical. Is this the best defense you can make for the many and varied liberal hypocrisies described in Peter Schweizer's book?

My apology
Jan 10, 2005
by Armstrong Williams

Dear readers:
In 2003, I agreed to run a paid ad on my syndicated television show, promoting the Department of Education's No Child Left Behind Act. I subsequently used my column space to support that legislation. This represents an obvious conflict of interests. People have used this conflict of interests to portray my column as being paid for by the Bush Administration. Nothing could be further from the truth.
At the same time, I understand that I exercised bad judgment in running paid advertising for an issue that I frequently write about in my column. People need to know that my column is uncorrupted by any outside influences. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for my bad judgment, and to better explain the circumstances.
In 2003 Ketchum Communications contacted a small PR firm that I own, Graham Williams Group, to buy ad space on a television show that I own and host. The ad was to promote The Department of Education's "No Child Left Behind" plan. I have long felt that school vouchers hold the greatest promise of ending the racial education gap in this country. We need to hold schools accountable for their failures and create incentives to change. That is why I have vigorously supported school vouchers for the past decade—in print, on TV, during media appearances and in lectures. I believe that school vouchers represent the greatest chance of stimulating hope for young, inner city school children—often of color. In fact, I am a board member of Black Americans for Educational Options (BAEO), because I feel that school choice plans hold the promise of a new civil rights movement.

In the past I have used my column space to convey the promise of school options. I continued to do so, even after receiving money to run a series of ads on my television show promoting the "No Child Left Behind" act. I now realize that I exercised poor judgment in continuing to write about a topic which my PR firm was being paid to promote.
The fact is, I run a small business. I am CEO and manage the syndication and advertising for my television show. In between juggling my commentaries and media appearances, I stepped over the line. This has never happened before. In fact, my company has never worked on a government contract. Nor have we ever received compensation for an issue that I subsequently reported on. This will never happen again. I now realize that I have to create inseparable boundaries between my role as a small businessman and my role as an independent commentator.
I also understand that people must be able to trust that my commentary is unbiased. Please know that I supported school vouchers long before the Department of Education ran a single ad on my TV Show. I did not change my views just because my PR firm was receiving paid advertising promoting the No Child Left Behind Act. I did however exercise bad judgment by accepting advertising for an issue that I frequently write about in my column. I apologize for this bad judgment, for creating questions in people's minds as to whether my commentary was sincere, and for bringing shame and embarrassment to the newspapers that run my commentary.
I accept full responsibility for my lack of good judgment. I am paying the price. Tribune Media has cancelled my column. And I have learned a valuable lesson. I just want to assure you that this will never happen again, and to ask for your forgiveness.
I hope that we can put this mistake behind us, and that I can continue to bring the same unique and impassioned perspective that I brought to this space in the past.
Sincerely,
Armstrong Williams
Armstrong Williams is a widely-syndicated columnist, CEO of the Graham Williams Group, and hosts the Armstrong Williams Show.
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/Armstrongwilliams/2005/01/10/14190.html
 
Dis, old pal, my offer to buy you this book is still open... or would you rather show us something (anything?!) that disproves Schweizer's facts?

Do As I Say (Not As I Do)
by Peter Schweizer


• "I don't own a single share of stock," Michael Moore declares. No, his tax returns show he has owned hundreds of thousands -- profiting from some of the very companies (like Halliburton and Boeing) he viciously denounces. Moore insists that corporations are evil and claims he doesn't invest in the stock market due to moral principle. But Moore's IRS forms show that over the past five years he has owned shares in such corporate giants as Halliburton, Merck, Pfizer, Sunoco, Tenet Healthcare, Ford, General Electric and McDonald's.

• The Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel: ultra-left class warrior, defender of the inheritance tax -- and trust-fund heiress who fought the IRS all the way to the Supreme Court to avoid paying $2 million in estate taxes

• During the 2004 campaign, John Kerry complained that the "super-rich" don't pay their fair share in taxes. Care to guess what percentage of their income Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry -- who are worth over $700 million -- are paying in taxes?

• Self-described socialist Noam Chomsky opposes private property and calls the Pentagon "the most vile institution on the face of the earth" -- yet he has made millions in contract work for the Pentagon, owns two luxurious homes, and set up an irrevocable trust to protect his assets from Uncle Sam. Chomsky has lashed out against tax havens and trusts that benefit only the rich, but Chomsky has been paid millions of dollars by the Pentagon over the last 40 years, and he used a venerable law firm to set up his irrevocable trust to shield his assets from the IRS.

Ted Kennedy favors racial set-asides on federal contracts -- but when it came to his own investment in an entire city block of Washington, DC, he got his political friends to help him waive an affirmative action set-aside. Kennedy has fought for the estate tax and spoken out against tax shelters. But he has repeatedly benefited from an intricate web of trusts and private foundations that have shielded most of his family's fortune from the IRS.

One Kennedy family trust wasn't even set up in the U.S., but in Fiji.

Another family member, environmentalist Robert Kennedy Jr., has said that it is not moral to profit from natural resources. But he receives an annual check from the family's large holdings in the oil industry.

Al Franken habitually calls conservatives "liars" and "mean and nasty" -- yet as a writer for "Saturday Night Live" he penned jokes and skits so mean-spirited they appalled even his colleagues, and he uses brazen lies for his bestselling books all the time. Air America radio host Franken says conservatives are racist because they lack diversity and oppose affirmative action. But fewer than 1 percent of the people he has hired over the past 15 years have been African-American.

Hillary Clinton supports the right of thirteen-year-old girls to have abortions without parental consent -- yet she forbade thirteen-year-old Chelsea to pierce her ears and enrolled her in a school that would not distribute condoms to minors.

Bill and Hillary Clinton have spoken in favor of the estate tax, and in 2000 Bill vetoed a bill seeking to end it. But the Clintons have set up a contract trust that allows them to substantially reduce the amount of inheritance tax their estate will pay when they die.

Ralph Nader: how he speculates in the stocks of companies that might be influenced by his political activism. How he conceals enormous wealth and a lavish lifestyle behind a façade of pretended frugality. Nader is another liberal who claims that unions are essential to protect worker rights. But when an editor of one of his publications tried to form a union to ameliorate miserable working conditions, the editor was fired and the locks changed on the office door.

Nancy Pelosi has made supporting labor unions a cornerstone of her public career. Yet the vineyards and hotels that comprise her $35 million fortune have one thing in common: they don't use union labor. Staunch union supporter Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has received the Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farmworkers Union. But the $25 million Northern California vineyard she and her husband own is a non-union shop.

The hypocrisy doesn't end there. Pelosi has received more money from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union than any other member of Congress in recent election cycles.

But the Pelosis own a large stake in an exclusive hotel in Rutherford, Calif. It has more than 250 employees - but none of them are in a union.

The Pelosis are also partners in a restaurant chain called Piatti, which has 900 employees. The chain is - that's right, a non-union shop.

Barbra Streisand: how, on the three causes with which she seems most concerned -- poverty, environmentalism and feminism -- she engages in the very behaviors she says she deplores. Streisand has talked about the necessity of unions to protect a "living wage." But she prefers to do her filming and postproduction work in Canada, where she can pay less than American union wages.

• Billionaire Bush-basher George Soros says the wealthy should pay higher, more progressive tax rates. But he holds the bulk of his money in tax-free overseas accounts in Curacao, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
 
just as oil prices hit all-time highs this year, Soros' hedge fund, Soros Fund Management, sold almost all of its oil stocks, including BP, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum and Marathon Oil -- some $348 million of stock value.

What does George Soros know that we don't?
 
Steve said:
just as oil prices hit all-time highs this year, Soros' hedge fund, Soros Fund Management, sold almost all of its oil stocks, including BP, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum and Marathon Oil -- some $348 million of stock value.

What does George Soros know that we don't?

Soros knows that oil prices, thus gasoline prices, are being manipulated. He knows that an election is coming up next year and high gasoline prices are bad for incumbents. Since more incumbents are Republicans, he expects to see oil (and gasoline) prices come down over the next year.
 
Ms Ding Dong, Armstrong Williams may have apologized, but he didn't give the money back, so how seriously can this apology be taken

I'm not trying to refute your "facts." I've pointed out that there are hyporictes in the Republican side, as well. I pointed out three who happen to be three of the top Republicans in government, Bush, Frist and Delay. Do you want to refute those facts?
 
Disagreeable said:
Soros knows that oil prices, thus gasoline prices, are being manipulated.
Prove it.

Disagreeable said:
He knows that....high gasoline prices are bad for incumbents
In theory only. Do you remember what gasoline prices were like in the months prior to the 2004 Presidential election?
 
Disagreeable said:
Steve said:
just as oil prices hit all-time highs this year, Soros' hedge fund, Soros Fund Management, sold almost all of its oil stocks, including BP, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum and Marathon Oil -- some $348 million of stock value.

What does George Soros know that we don't?

Soros knows that oil prices, thus gasoline prices, are being manipulated. He knows that an election is coming up next year and high gasoline prices are bad for incumbents. Since more incumbents are Republicans, he expects to see oil (and gasoline) prices come down over the next year.

I'll hold you to that prediction, Dis. I actually hope you're right, BTW, because I do a lot of driving! :lol:
 

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