The Republican Noise Machine is at it again. Saying Dean paid bloggers to blog favorably of him is distortion enough, but then they treat it as if it's equivalent to the Bush Armstrong Williams payments. (Compare it to understand clearly, there's no comparing!) If history is any guide they'll get away with it. Talk radio, Fox and cable news all chatter away about it, it moves next to mainstream media and the world comes to believe it's so. Meanwhile, you're not likely to see this from Laura Gross of Dean For America, the "Dean spokeswoman" quoted in the WSJ piece that started it all, via Kos:
Here's the deal: the campaign paid these guys with private funds to do work that did not include writing content or otherwise talking/writing about the campaign -- and widely disclosed the relationship at the time anyway, just in case. The Bush administration used taxpayer dollars to pay Williams to lace his commentary with praise for a certain policy -- and both the administration and Williams covered it up. Also, it appears that what they have done is illegal.
Here's Joe Trippi's response. And here a Wall Street Journal Armstrong Williams conflict of interest.
UPDATE: Dave Winer, Scripting News, 16 minute podcast interview with Joe Trippi from Saturday, January 15. Transcript & audio.
