What Price Williams?

Tim Cavanaugh | January 9, 2005

Reason contributor John Hood weighs in on the Armstrong Williams debacle in his Carolina Journal column. Hood does an excellent job of laying out the ethical boundaries Williams violated, but I have another question—to paraphrase the apocryphal Winston Churchill anecdote, we already know what kind of man Williams is, now I want to argue over the price.

I would take the Bush Administration's money in a heartbeat, but then it's not like my career is setting the world on fire. 240 large meets my price point for selling out a few core beliefs, and I'd use the money for a down payment on a house with a study where I could brood over my moral qualms in comfort.

Armstrong Williams (who is currently polling readers about his problem), is nowhere near this situation. $240,000 is less than he would get from a book advance or a week of speaking engagements. The wonderful thing isn't that celebrity pundits are up for sale, but that they're available at such a reasonable rate.

Or are we seeing another of those weird anomalies in an economy of fame and fortune where George Kennedy gets paid to brag about his fresh breath and an NFL Hall of Famer has to beg a prepaid hooker for anal sex? If this is an inefficiency in the market for shill-punditry, then President Bush has shown a remarkable talent for arbitrage.

Comments

|1.9.05 @ 3:55PM|#

Tim,

I'm trying to be positive today, so here goes. Any "core beliefs" that $240,000 convinces you to abandon must not have been that important to begin with.

|1.9.05 @ 4:38PM|#

Tim,

I could be wrong, but I don't think Kobe was begging for anal sex there. The channels I watched said he wanted to deliver a facial.

|1.9.05 @ 4:40PM|#

And now that I read down further, I see the authour corrected that. So I assume the gofford stuff is also accurate.

|1.9.05 @ 4:40PM|#

I am going on strike: I'm no longer saying "Of course [insert Democrat here] would be much worse" unless the Bush administration pays me something for it. I don't need $240k, I'll settle for something smaller.

I encourage all commenters to respect my picket line by refraining from criticizing Democrats until the Republicans pay us for our troubles. Let's show some solidarity here! :->

|1.9.05 @ 5:34PM|#

I'm with Thoreau. If the Republicans want "fair and balanced" criticism of the Party That Shall Remain Nameless Unless I Get Paid (PTSRNUIGP, for short), then the Republicans should open their wallets.

I guess it's non-stop Bush bashing around here. Ah, heck, with the Rs in control of everything, it's not like we were going to spend much time on the PTSRNUIGP, anyway.

|1.9.05 @ 7:49PM|#

Sorry, Thoreau, but I've little respect for monopolies, not even the labor monopolies that most people seem to have a soft spot for.

I'm also willing to criticize the Democrats, and say, "Of course, Kerry would be much worse" -- and anyone interested will find that my rates are quite competitive compared to Thoreau's.

|1.9.05 @ 7:54PM|#

thoreau: "...I'll settle for something smaller."

You and Jenna Jameson.

Charles Oliver: "The channels I watched said he wanted to deliver a facial."

If you did less of that you might not be blogging, Armstrong Who?

And what sort of sex act is a "gofford"?

|1.9.05 @ 7:56PM|#

Stevo, there's a word for people like you:

SCAB!!!!

:)

|1.9.05 @ 8:04PM|#

Where is Thread Killer?
This thread should have been aborted.
Nobody has paid me to say it.
Nobody would pay me to say it or the opposite.

We are here not as "opinion leaders" because we don't give a shit about persons so stupid their opinions can be led.
We are here as "keepers of the flame."

|1.9.05 @ 8:59PM|#

The funniest thing about the Williams debacle is that the Bush administration really believed that they could reach the African-American community through a guy like Armstrong Williams.

|1.10.05 @ 7:44AM|#

Wasn't Williams getting paid to say, a few more times, what he would say anyway? It isn't like he was getting paid to promote the UN.

|1.10.05 @ 7:59AM|#

Wasn't that an Oscar Wilde anecdote?

Tim Cavanaugh|1.10.05 @ 10:03AM|#

Wasn't Williams getting paid to say, a few more times, what he would say anyway? It isn't like he was getting paid to promote the UN.

I'm glad somebody brought this up. "Conservative" punditry has been so warped by pro-Bush apologetics that you're probably right: Left to his own devices, Williams probably would have ended up praising NCLB anyway.

|1.10.05 @ 10:29AM|#

Here's Armstrong Williams explaining his action in his latest column:
My Apology

He makes no mention of the deal obligating him to talk about NCLB on the air, or interviewing Rod Paige. Rather he asserts that the PR firm (which he owns) made a mistake by selling ad space on his show to promote an issue he discussed regularly. He apparently only sees it as a slight conflict of interest rather than being bought off.

Even though Williams might have praised NCLB anyway, reading his column today makes me wonder. He states several times that he has argued in favor of School Choice for over a decade, including voucher programs. And though NCLB does offer an option for parents to move their children do different schools that option is (1) rarely exercised, and (2) hardly the heart of the law (at least as I read it). So the question of whether Williams would have talked up NCLB anyway seems still open to me.

Finally, I've got to say that I'm very disturbed by the idea of the government using tax money to finance propaganda promoting laws - especially those that aren't all that unpopular (in some circles anyway) in the first place. I'm more furious with the Bush administration than Armstrong Williams.

|1.10.05 @ 12:23PM|#

I am the artist formerly known as Threadkiller.

Thoreau: Monopolist robber-baron! :)

|1.10.05 @ 12:27PM|#

Stevo, all we're asking is a living wage for partisan shills and fair labor standards. I want a guarantee that if any of my utterances cause me to vomit in disgust the medical bill will be covered by OSHA.

|1.10.05 @ 12:49PM|#

So I guess taking a quarter million in taxpayer money from a government you ostensibly think is too big anyway to talk about something you would have talked about unpaid and unprompted is a new conservative principle?