Who will defend Armstrong William's payola scheme with the White House? Probably not many, on either side of the aisle. The National Review's Jonah Goldberg said:
Jonah Goldberg: "I think Armstrong Williams should give the money back. I think he should probably be ashamed of himself for taking it. I think the White House really screwed up ... all I can say is that if Bill Clinton had gotten caught giving Joe Conason a quarter of a million dollars to be flogging their policies, guys like me would have smoke coming out of our ears, and The Right would go crazy." [CNN, IP, 1/7/05]
Of course the Right would go crazy, as would I and most (if not all) of the Left.
Remember -- this is taxpayer support for a propaganda mouthpiece. If Scaife or whoever wants to pay conservative writers a quarter of a million dollars to push their agenda, that's fair game. But using public funds to pay for it is out of bounds.