What Price Williams?

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.