The Media

Markos vs. Armstrong: the bottom line

Can you see it? The way the right is deflecting allegations of propaganda against the White House and Armstrong Williams? Instead of facing the issue head-on and acquitting itself, they're trumping up a year old story about Kos being paid by the Dean campaign to consult on the primaries.

Despite the massive coverage this is getting on O'Reilly, the WSJ, Drudge, and the freeper blogs, the issue isn't an issue at all. And the circumstances are very different.

1. Dean didn't use taxpayer cash to pay Kos. The administration used federal funds to pay Williams.

2. Kos fully disclosed his employment on the Dean campaign and much discussion took place about it (over a year ago!) on hbis site. Williams only disclosed after USA Today uncovered it with a FOIA request.

3. MyDD's Jerome Armstrong actually stopped publishing his blog during his employment. Williams kept writing, broadcasting, and pundit-ing while on the administration payroll.

4. Dean was a primary candidate for president and, clearly, had no power to propose legislation to Congress under the banner of the office of the presidency, with the "will of the people" as a bargaining tool. I mention the obvious here because you'd actually be surprised by how badly the freepers don't get this very obvious detail.

Mainly, expect the Kos/MyDD/Dean story to completely eclipse the White House propaganda allegations with a zeal far exceeding the limp coverage of the Williams issue.