Administration Rejects Ruling On PR Videos (GAO Called Tapes Illegal Propa

[rodeodance]

ganda).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35010-2005Mar14.html?referrer=email
Administration Rejects Ruling On PR Videos

GAO Called Tapes Illegal Propaganda

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 15, 2005; Page A21

The Bush administration, rejecting an opinion from the Government Accountability Office, said last week that it is legal for federal agencies to feed TV stations prepackaged news stories that do not disclose the government's role in producing them.

That message, in memos sent Friday to federal agency heads and general counsels, contradicts a Feb. 17 memo from Comptroller General David M. Walker. Walker wrote that such stories -- designed to resemble independently reported broadcast news stories so that TV stations can run them without editing -- violate provisions in annual appropriations laws that ban covert propaganda.

OMB's Joshua B. Bolten: Justice, not GAO, interprets law.


But Joshua B. Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Steven G. Bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, said in memos last week that the administration disagrees with the GAO's ruling. And, in any case, they wrote, the department's Office of Legal Counsel, not the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, provides binding legal interpretations for federal agencies to follow.

The legal counsel's office "does not agree with GAO that the covert propaganda prohibition applies simply because an agency's role in producing and disseminating information is undisclosed or 'covert,' regardless of whether the content of the message is 'propaganda,' " Bradbury wrote. "Our view is that the prohibition does not apply where there is no advocacy of a particular viewpoint, and therefore it does not apply to the legitimate provision of information concerning the programs administered by an agency.".......

[rodeodance]

1. CNN actually did a fair-good job of reporting on this (Andrea Mitchell no

less).

But I doubt that she, herself, recognized she is part of the propaganda)

[Windy]

2. Mitchell's on MSNBC isn't she?

She's married to Greenspan

[NVMojo]

3. It was propaganda, pure and simple!

[Sinistrous]

4. Isn't it nice to be a dictator?

When you get an unfavorable judgement, you just "reject" it and that is the end of the issue. The truly ghastly thing is, the public lets these bastards get away with it.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. Yep. Why make something illegal if there are

no consequences?

[Frances]

6. This is why Dems so desperately need

to have a majority in either the House or the Senate. If we had a majority in either body, then we could hold hearings and get media coverage.

The only way we will ever get a majority in the House or the Senate is if we stop eating our own. I don't know how many posts I've seen saying that individual DUers won't support Dem candidates unless they meet the individual's stringent criteria.

[gratuitous]

7. Justice, not GAO, interprets the law

Gee, I wonder what the administration's stance would be if CBS (for example) told the FCC to shove it with their threatened fines, because it's the courts, not administrative agency, that should decide fines?

[UpInArms]

8. just enlarging the circle

"Who cares what you think?"
- President George W. Bush, July 4, 2001

[nedbal]

9. Breaking- - Ann "stick" Colter to be head of GAO

It wouldn't surprise me at this point. The GAO has come out with a few things repubs hate. THE GAO will be demonized next.