Once again, the Bush administration has been caught using public funds to promote the administration's agenda without telling anyone that it's government propaganda. This time, it involves the Department of Education which paid advocacy groups to write opinion pieces for newspapers, as well as advertisement and other publicity materials.

The Stakeholder explains:

Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the senior Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, requested the report in January. Miller said the report raises two key concerns: first, that it describes the consistent use of covert propaganda by the Department of Education over a period of years; and second, that it shows a disturbing pattern of neglect on the part of the Department when it comes to properly overseeing its grants and contracts.

For example, opinion articles appearing in an untold number of newspapers all over the country were written and placed by authors paid by the federal government who failed to disclose this relationship in their columns. These writers offered opinions – sometimes strident ones – about controversial areas of federal education policy.

Why has the Bush administration acted so often to use government funds for covert propaganda? Is it that they have so little faith in their own agenda that they don't think people will accept it without outside approval? Do they think that their years of rhetoric about how awful the government is will prevent people from believing things that come from a government source?

Read More:

• News on Free Speech and Civil Liberties
• Guide to Ethics and Morality
• News About Ethics