WH To Ignore GAO News Ruling

[sandnsea]

Dr. Ron just posted this. I am flabbergasted. They are just out of control.

White House to agencies: Ignore GAO's ruling on 'illegal' TV news releases


Ken Herman
Cox News Service
Mar. 15, 2005 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - The White House, intent on continuing to crank out "video news releases" that look like television news stories, has told government agency heads to ignore a Government Accountability Office memo criticizing the practice as illegal propaganda.

In a memo on Friday, Joshua Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the lawyers the White House depends on disagree with the GAO's conclusions..

Related Story: Kerry Protests Prepackaged News

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. I am really beginning to understand what it must have been like

in Germany right around 1934-35.

[KharmaTrain]

2. Think Sinclair Would Care Anyway?

This media whore is the worst at running these hit pieces, but if this regime didn't produce it, they'd just fax the script to Baltimore and Mark Heymann would do it. Create one obstacle to these rats and they'll find another way.

The problem here isn't the producing of this garbage. The government's been producing material they send to News Directors for ages, it's just whose using them and how they're used.

As a holder of publicly-issued licenses, Sinclair and other companies have the obligation, not the responsibility (unfortunately) or liability to preface such reports as being "government issue"...and this deception should be grounds to have their stations fined or their licenses reviewed.

It's like the immigration issue, it's not the Mexicans pouring across the border that create the problem, it's the people here who hire them for their own greed and self interests.

[sandnsea]

4. This is different

This isn't live footage that the news stations can use to enhance their own reporting. These are pieces that are made to look like news. California is just plugging Arnold's right into the news broadcasts, they don't even pretend to do objective reporting with them. The government hasn't attempted to provide stand-alone news propaganda like this before. The GAO wouldn't have made the differentiation if this was the same old thing.

[NightOwwl]

3. You must not have gotten the memo.

We live in a dictatorship now. Sucks, doesn't it?

[Rex]

5. The GAO has ruled Bush & crew unaccountable, greedy, reckless,

fanatical, tyrannical (well only the first one, I added the rest). As long as the media stays out of the truth then Bush will do whatever he wants.

[depakid]

6. No surprise there

Republicans don't believe in the rule of law- the evidence has been in on that for years.

Also, I don't see a whole lot of difference between what the whitehouse runs and the usual propaganda on EVERY SINGLE CHANNEL.

It's already Pravda for dummies out there. Might as well make it official.

[Nothing Without Hope]

7. Yeah, they like to hand-pick lawyers who tell them what they want to hear

In a memo on Friday, Joshua Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the lawyers the White House depends on disagree with the GAO's conclusions.

Yeah, just like Gonzales wrote that torture is OK and the Geneva Conventions are "quaint." They are totally outside the law and feel srongly enough entrenched now that they don't have to hide it any more. (Except for their role in the 9/11 attacks - THAT would bring them down if known.)

The WH has its policy on journalism just the way they want it:

[Nothing Without Hope]

8. Question for the legal mavens: what is the legal recourse?

They are refusing to obey a GAO "memo." What happens next? What power to issue something more binding than a "memo" does the GAO have? Are there any enforcement laws at all? Surely the GAO isn't intended to operate on the "honor system" with transgressors?

[Insider]

9. with our money

let's sue them.

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. For an administration that Bush claimed

was going to be the most ethical administration ever, they sure do seem to have an ethics problem?