Commentator Paid to Push Bush Agenda

WASHINGTON —  The Bush administration paid a prominent commentator to promote the No Child Left Behind schools law to fellow blacks and give the education secretary media time, records show.

A company run by Armstrong Williams was paid $240,000 by the Education Department. The goal was to deliver positive messages about President Bush’s education overhaul, using Williams’ influence with minorities.

The deal is the latest to put the department on the defensive for the way it promoted Bush’s signature domestic policy.

The contract required Williams’ company to produce radio and TV ads featuring one-minute “reads” by Education Secretary Rod Paige. The deal also allowed Paige and other officials to appear as guests with Williams.

Williams, a leading black conservative voice, was to use his influence to get black journalists to talk about No Child Left Behind. The law, a centerpiece of President Bush’s domestic agenda, aims to raise achievement among poor and minority children, with penalties for schools that don’t make progress.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday the decisions on the practice were made by the Education Department. He did not directly answer when asked whether the White House approved of the practice.

The department defended its decision as a “permissible use of taxpayer funds under legal government contracting procedures.” The point was to help parents, particularly in poor and minority areas, understand the benefits of the law, it said.

Williams called criticism of his ties with the department legitimate. “It’s a fine line,” he said. “Even though I’m not a journalist -- I’m a commentator -- I feel I should be held to the media ethics standard. My judgment was not the best. I wouldn’t do it again, and I learned from it.”

Williams is the host of a syndicated television show and frequent guest on CNN, NBC and other media, and writes a syndicated opinion column. After the disclosure, Tribune Media Services, a subsidiary of the Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times, announced that it would stop syndicating his column.

Three Democratic senators -- Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and minority leader Harry Reid of Nevada -- wrote Bush on Friday to demand that he recover the money paid to Armstrong. They contended that “the act of bribing journalists to bias their news in favor of government policies undermines the integrity of our democracy.”

Rep. George Miller of Martinez, the top Democrat on the House Education Committee, asked for an inspector general investigation into whether the deal was legal. He and other Democrats also wrote Bush to call for an end to “covert propaganda.”

The Williams incident follows another recent flap about the agency’s publicity efforts.

The administration has promoted No Child Left Behind with a video that comes across as a news story but fails to make clear that the reporter involved was paid with taxpayer money. It also has paid for rankings of newspaper coverage of the law, with points awarded for articles that say Bush and the Republican Party are strong on education. The Government Accountability Office, Congress’ auditing arm, is investigating those spending decisions.