• January 11, 2005 | 7:36 p.m. ET

Armstrong, O'Reilly Weak (Keith Olbermann)

SECAUCUS — The head of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy said it best. Alex Jones, on Countdown Monday night, insisted that the worst part about the CBS "Killian Memos" disaster was that it had overshadowed the Armstrong Williams "Pay For Praise" disaster.

Oh, no, it hasn't.

Mr. Williams has been fired — again — and he’s been quoted as saying there are others on the official Government Information Dole, and he is — in spirit at least — being copy-catted as far away as the nascent democracy trying to emerge in Iraq.

There, the political party of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi held a news conference in Baghdad to announce some of its candidates for the elections. It had a little surprise for the reporters who attended: One hundred dollars. The newspaper The Financial Timesreporting that after their statements, Allawi's colleagues invited each journalist to an upstairs room, and handed them each a hundred-dollar bill. American. A Ben Franklin for everybody in the house.

The newspaper reported that giving gifts to journalists was common in many authoritarian states of the Middle East, but the reporters at the news conference in question said it was not common practice in the post-Saddam Iraq. On the other hand, most of them also said they kept the cash.

Which is what Armstrong Williams continues to insist he's going to do — keep the $241,000 paid him by the Education Department to hype its "No Child Left Behind" program. It turns out he may need it.

"America's Black Forum," the long-running public affairs telecast co-anchored by NPR’s Juan Williams and the Fox sportscaster James Brown, says today it has terminated its relationship with Armstrong Williams. He had appeared as a commentator on the program, but its executive producer says that Williams’ "failure to disclose the potential conflict of interest" has led to his dismissal.

Then there is Sinclair Broadcast Group. The 39-station conglomerate — still infamous over its transformation of some Swift Boat Veterans’ malarkey into “news” — is now investigating Williams. Its counsel telling the industry newspaper The Hollywood Reporter that it too had a contract with Williams — as a consultant, and contributor to a Sinclair produced news broadcast called "News Central."

The lawyer says it is believed Williams interviewed Secretary of Education Rod Paige — from whose department Williams received the contract — on the Sinclair broadcast. Since its deal with Williams has already expired, Sinclair doesn’t expect to be able to do much even if the wool was pulled over its eyes. But what does it say when you’re being investigated for insufficient ethics by Sinclair?

Since USA Today broke the Williams story last Friday, one of the many questions asked has been: was that contract the only one? White House spokesman Scott McClellan says he doesn't know of any others, but a Fox News Channel commentator says he does — because Armstrong Williams told him about them.

Writing on the website of the magazine The Nation, David Corn says he encountered Williams in a Fox Green Room after the story broke and Williams told him, "This happens all the time. There are others."

Corn says he then asked Williams for the names of other conservative commentators who had accepted money from the Bush Administration... to which Williams replied, "I'm not going to defend myself that way."

Corn writes that even he could not tell if Williams was just covering his own butt, or if he really knew of other cases like his own. But apparently there's going to be a Congressional investigation. A spokesman for Ohio Congressman John Boehner, who chairs the House Education and The Work-force Committee, says on the Republican's behalf, "if what has been reported is accurate it is certainly indefensible — it is an inappropriate use of taxpayer money."

Until the Armstrong Williams story broke, I’d never even considered this possibility — paying pundits or journalists to policy-shill — under any American government at any time other than during global war. But the Williams revelations do remind me that I’ve always wondered how some of the monolithic, elaborate websites, especially conservative ones with a million links, have managed to stay afloat financially, and if somebody in government wasn’t supplying them with more than just hot news flashes.

Speaking of hot flashes, we have another round of what continues to look like the self-destruction of Bill O'Reilly. The man who moved from falafels, loofahs, and $60,000,000 dollar lawsuits over sexual harassment charges, to becoming the self-appointed holy protector of Christmas, has now taken off on another flight of delusion of grandeur. He's attacked Saturday's tsunami relief telethon on NBC and its owned cable networks (like MSNBC).

The other night, O’Reilly told his semi-comatose viewers: "A national TV telethon will raise millions and 'The Factor' will be watching to see if the money gets to the tsunami victims. If it does not, there will be trouble.”

I’m guessing he'll try to cause lightning. Maybe locusts.

The rant continued, "If George Clooney and other stars go on tv and ask you to give, then they had better be involved all the way down the line."

Clooney, whom O’Reilly had also attacked after a similar celebrity telethon for 9/11 victims, released a letter he wrote to the bizarre Fox host. "So all right, Mr. Journalist... come on in. I'm booking the talent for the Tsunami event... and you, Mr. O'Reilly, are now officially invited to be a presenter... either you ante up and help out AND be that watch dog that you feel we clearly need... or you simply stand on the sidelines and cast stones... This is your chance to put your considerable money where your considerable mouth is."

O'Reilly says in reply, "I have to see what the format is. I would like to go over there and check things out. Whether I make a pitch or not depends on how organized things are."

In other words, Bill’s thinking about it.

Don't hurt yourself, Buddy.

TeeHee!

If there's going to be an investigation, then it shouldn't stop at the Education Department. Someone needs to take a close look at the pundits that spouted the party line in commentary after commentary during the build up to the Iraq war, since the invasion and during the presidential campaign. Probably other times too, but I can't remember them off the top of my head. Also, EVERY commentator on Fox should be checked. Top on the list is O'Reilly and Coulter.

The silence in the mainstream media about this annoys me to no end. The neocons and the media pratically tarred and feathered Dan Rather. Yet this???? PROOF of bias and an agenda that's based on personal gain????? pfffttt Barely a mention.

Lastnight's Countdown was great to watch.

It sure was...

What time is Countdown on? Is it in the 9:00 slot? I was reading an article the other day about CNN firing Tuker Carlson, and Carlson talking to MSNBC about hosting a show there. The programming director from MSNBC was quoted as saying they were looking for a new show for the 9:00 timeslot and that they were considering Tuker for that show.....

I always figured Armstrong for a big Bush toady.........

Keith.

Olbermann.

Rocks.



Dig the last line of his story!

I got news for Olbermann on one point he made. Sinclair wasn't the only "news outlet" that treated the SBVT as though their pronouncements were "news."

You can count every cable news network in on that calumny.

For some reason, I can't edit my posts anymore--so to add a correction to my previous post, Countdown appears to air at 8:00, so it looks like Keith will not be bumped for Tucker (which I embarassingly misspelled twice in my previous quote--d*mn you DayQuil!).