Taxpayer Alert: We’re Paying for Bush Propaganda

[Omaha Steve]

FULL story: http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/08/21/taxpayer-alert-we%e2%80%99re-paying-for-bush-propaganda/

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Taxpayer Alert: We’re Paying for Bush Propaganda

Once upon a time, in democratically elected governments around the globe, a notion evolved in which employees staffing government agencies should be outside the political process—representing taxpayers rather than political parties.




For its part, the United States created what we call the “civil service” system to help ensure the people we pay to work for us actually work for us, and are not beholden to any political group. Employees of the federal government—accountants and social service administrators, agriculture officials and tax preparers—are held to professional standards that mean no matter which political party is in power, they will continue to serve all taxpayers appropriately.

Unless they’re Bush Republican cronies.
In the latest conflict of interest by a Bush mouthpiece, er, public servant, The Washington Post reports that Labor Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Karen Czarnecki regularly appears on Fox News television under the label “conservative strategist.”

She also is a regular “conservative analyst” on the PBS show “To the Contrary” and, according to her department biography, has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, Canadian Public Broadcasting and C-SPAN.

And according to Justin Rood at TPM Muckracker, the Bush administration not only is aware of Czarnecki’s media appearances but also required PBS not to disclose the fact she’s a federal employee.

PBS and the show’s host have defended their practice of using Czarnecki without disclosing her day job. According to show host Bonnie Erbe, the administration required that Czarnecki’s position not be disclosed as a condition of her appearing on the show.

How can this be? The Hatch Act, which covers federal, state and local public employees, restricts

the political activity of executive branch employees of the federal government, District of Columbia government and some state and local employees who work in connection with federally funded programs.

Click the link at the top for the rest of the story.

[Tanuki]

1. Indefensible.

"PBS and the show’s host have defended their practice of using Czarnecki without disclosing her day job. According to show host Bonnie Erbe, the administration required that Czarnecki’s position not be disclosed as a condition of her appearing on the show."

What kind of crap "excuse" is that?! Erbe or the producers of the show should simply have told the Administration that they were unwilling to censor the truth, and found someone else to be a guest on the show instead. This seems like a clear violation of journalistic ethics, if there is still any such thing.