Bushco propaganda machine strikes again!

Reports from Iraq are saying that the U.S. military has been paying Iraqi journalists and publishers to print articles favorable to the efforts of the coalition forces. In fact, many of these articles are not written by the Iraqi journalists at all, but by the United States and its contract agencies.

So much for promoting freedom of the press. But I guess this should come as little surprise to us. After all, the Bush administration has been paying domestic media outlets and planting its own propaganda here at home for the last few years. In fact, the U.S. Education Department paid commentator Armstrong Williams nearly $250,000 to tout the administration's No Child Left Behind initiative.

Other administration departments have even produced and distributed pre-packaged video "news" segments designed to look like real television news segments. But they're not news at all. They are, quite literally, government propaganda, something that is illegal in this country.

And let's not forget the notorious White House reporter Jeff Gannon, aka James Guckert, who turned out to be nothing but a sham reporter and former male prostitute.

According to a recent article in Rolling Stone, propaganda even may have been used in selling the Iraq war to Americans and others around the world.

According to the GAO, "the publicity or propaganda prohibition is a restriction on the government's use of appropriated funds in disseminating information." In short, it's against the law to use government money to sell the administration's politics in the media.

But laws - or even ethics - don't seem to get in the way of the Bush administration. They just seem to do what they please until someone finds out and then they plead ignorance. They've done it at home and they're doing it in Iraq, too.

Is it any wonder that our reputation around the world is in the shitter? Who can trust us anymore? I wouldn't. Would you?