It's only words

The insufferable White House excuser Howard Kurtz, is at it again, reporting that Bush has taken to "summoning" newspaper editors to the Oval Office in an attempt to prevent them from publishing stories he considers damaging to national security. Hah. It's more like he's trying to prevent blowback on the revelations of his illegal civil rights infringements from damaging his political security which according to Howie is only of concern to liberals. Kurtz needs to get out more. Outside of his fellow top ten apologists in the noise machine, even the Bush base bloggers are getting nervous.

Howard also drops a dime in the emerging scandal of bought off columnists and suggests the recent outing of Doug Bandow of CATO is just the tip of the iceberg. That doesn't surprise me, in fact one wonders what think tank might be slipping Howie some cash under the table to keep up the party line, but this disturbs me.

Peter Ferrara of the Institute for Policy Innovation has acknowledged taking payments years ago from a half-dozen lobbyists, including Abramoff. Two of his papers, the Washington Times and Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader, have now dropped him. But Ferrara is unapologetic, saying: "There is nothing unethical about taking money from someone and writing an article."

Maybe they redefined ethics when I wasn't looking. Seems to me that tailoring a piece to a proscribed POV for money without disclosing the connection, even if it jibes with your own opinion, is not that honest.