Full Disclosure

by

After the horrifying revelation that kos and Jerome of MyDD were hired as technical consultants by the Dean campaign, I did some serious soul-searching. After seconds hours of agonized reflection while eating Doritos wailing and rending my garments, I decided to listen to the still, small voice of conscience and come clean.

I have worked as a donor for several campaigns. I was paid -$2,000 by both the Clark and Kerry campaigns, and smaller amounts (in absolute value) by a whole host of Senate and Congressional candidates. I told myself that it was my civic duty. They want my money technical skills, I said to myself, and who am I to refuse? The fact that I now have financial ties to a number of political candidates won’t affect my integrity as a blogger, and surely those uncounted millions who have come to trust me and who, I have no doubt, accept my every word as gospel don’t need to know every little trivial detail about my life. Gentle uncounted millions: I was wrong! And you deserve better.

I should also note that (as I think I mentioned once — but once is not enough!) I was a TA with Andrew Sullivan once, I know a lot of the people at Left2Right, and I’m pretty sure I know Matt Yglesias’ advisor. If he were ten years older, I would probably have been his TA, but as things are, I never had the pleasure.

53 thoughts on “Full Disclosure”

  1. Guess who just learned a new html tag? This brings me to five: link, blockquote, italic, bold, and now strike. Any day now: complicated operations with frames.

  2. May I say that, while Armstrong Williams’ behavior clearly crossed a line, I think the outrage is just a touch overdone.
    What do lots of Washington reporters do? They get a leak, or an anonymous quote, not by virtue of intrepid reporting, but because some politician wants to make something public with no name attached. For performing this service the reporter gains prestige which presumably translates ultimately into money.
    What do the so-called pundits do? An awful lot of them seem heavily tied to one party or the other, and they dutifully push the agenda. So they are on TV, get syndicated columns, etc.
    In other word, I think there is an awful lot of journalistic whoring going on that nobody criticizes very much. Perhaps Williams’ crime was insufficient subtlety.

  4. Anarch: I knew no html tags when I took this gig. Getting my first post up was a trial. I think five is a nice number.
    Bernard: As I understand it, Armstrong Williams was paid with taxpayer dollars to deliver a plainly political message in violation of the law. That counts as outrageous in my book.

  5. Actually, I wasn’t referring to your grasp of HTML at all. I just wanted to provide a suitably cruel response to your shocking disclosure. 🙂

  6. i suppose i’d be outraged, too… if i didn’t remember reading KOS’s postings at the time and thinking “yeah, we know you work for Dean. you tell us that every chance you get – friggin name dropper!”
    but, once the slime machine is done, KOS’s non-sin will be all anyone remembers about the whole thing.
    funny how that works.

  10. Anarch: ah. ‘Slut’ accurately, if uncharitably, describes my record as a (financially) promiscuous political donor, but I wasn’t sure what ‘ignorant’ was doing there. Conversely, ‘ignorant’ makes total sense as applied to me and html, but, I wondered, why ‘slut’? Now all is plain. Sort of 😉

  12. Ah, thanks.
    I love the format.
    SCANDALOUS THING!
    Paragraph 1: Scandalous and sexy things occured.
    Paragraph 2: Many are outraged.
    Paragraph 3: Okay, it wasn’t actually that scandalous.
    Paragraph 4: Okay, everybody knew about it.
    Paragraph 5: Okay, nobody cares.

  13. Striking words is fun!
    Armstrong Williams really blew it because he took our money and didn’t disclose it. Kos and MyDD taking money from the Dean campaign is a non-story because Kos disclosed it and MyDD went off line.

  14. I work for a major international firm which I’m not even going to name! I have never been paid by a political candidate, which is a horrible blow to my ego!
    I overuse exclamation points when I’m being silly!

  16. hilzoy,
    As I understand it, Armstrong Williams was paid with taxpayer dollars to deliver a plainly political message in violation of the law. That counts as outrageous in my book.
    Yes. But you’re talking about the behavior of the payer, not the payee. The case against Williams is that he took money for advancing a political argument without disclosing it. He shouldn’t have done that. I agree. I’m not defending Williams.
    My point is that I think lots of journalists accept indirect benefits, call it career advancement, in exchange for advancing a political argument, or helping out in a feud.

  17. hilzoy
    I think the ‘ignorant slut’ line is from the original Sat nite live, where Dan Ackroyd and Jane Curtin did a Point-Counterpoint take off.
    While we are on the subject, though Seb‘s tongue is (I hope) firmly in his cheek, I wonder about what point he wants to make, other than to undermine a fellow frontpage poster. While that was pretty common at a site that shall not be mentioned, is it really the ObWi way?

  19. Anarch: Ah. All is revealed. Serves me right for not watching SNL.
    LJ: How can Sebastian’s revelations undermine me, when he uses three times as many exclamation points in his puny post as I use in mine?
    I should add, in the spirit of Anarch’s most recent revelation, that I am paid quite adequately by Johns Hopkins.

  20. I don’t think I am undermining a post by being silly when it tells us right up front that the topic is a bit silly: “and surely those uncounted millions who have come to trust me and who, I have no doubt, accept my every word as gospel don’t need to know every little trivial detail about my life. Gentle uncounted millions: I was wrong! And you deserve better.”
    That is a truly compact quote! It has the uncounted millions. She knows we couldn’t deserve better. Trivial details. The word gospel even is a bit tongue in cheek considering recent posts about religious behaviours of certain current Presidents.
    My response was nothing more than playing along with the fun.

  21. “Serves me right for not watching SNL.”
    If you’re too young to have been a TA to Matt Yglesias, it is even more unforgivable that you weren’t watching SNL in 1975, when the Ackroyd-Curtain Point/Counterpoint sketches aired. (Okay, you could have either caught reruns, or plucked the line from the historic pop culture zeitgeist, but you’re almost as wrong — wrong! — here as originally; back to wailing and rending garments, young lady!)

  22. But Gary: in 1975 I was still in high school, living with my parents, who didn’t watch TV outside of MacNeill/Lehrer and the odd Masterpiece Theater. Plus, I was too unpopular to have heard of it, which I realize is saying a lot, but it’s true. (I escaped all sorts of teenage depravity through the simple expedient of having no friends.)

  23. It was a takeoff on 60 Minutes’ Point-Counterpoint. Ackroyd played the James Kilpatrick role; Curtin was Shana Alexander. Ah, the good old days of SNL, when there was as much good political satire as there were potty-and-titty jokes.

  26. (I escaped all sorts of teenage depravity through the simple expedient of having no friends.)
    Teenage depravity in the 1970s expanded horizons if you survived.

  27. I should also note that (as I think I mentioned once — but once is not enough!) I was a TA with Andrew Sullivan once
    You were Andrew Sullivan’s T&A?
    You don’t say!
    Hilzoy, I’m disappointed in you, ey?
    I thought you had more taste, I would say.
    Also I thought Andrew didn’t swing that way.
    And Matthew might be available for…the hay…
    What a revelations day!
    Now I must be on my way!

  28. “My response was nothing more than playing along with the fun.”
    Your evil responses require no justification.
    Ia! Ia! Sebastian fhtagn!

  30. “But Gary: in 1975 I was still in high school….”
    Um, kinda thought that was my point. What did you read “If you’re too young to have been a TA to Matt Yglesias, it is even more unforgivable that you weren’t watching SNL in 1975…” to mean?
    As usual, my obscurantist sense of humor fails me. Here’s another: “Ah, the good old days of SNL, when there was as much good political satire as there were potty-and-titty jokes.”
    And their music today! It’s just noise, I tell you! (See also quote from Socrates on left sidebar of my blog.)

  31. Sorry, the duty of trying to single(or at least family) handedly keeping domestic consumption up here in Japan called.
    A couple of points.
    Sorry for being the spoiler, but I think we have a fair handful non non-Americans as well as a number of Americans who missed the subversive joys of the first SNL. Hilzoy is remarkably even tempered, but I think a link or two (the first link is dated from April 24, 2004 and gives “the total list of most influential leaders during this election year, based on Web searches”. I challenge anyone to read it and not have serious questions about public opinion)
    LJ: How can Sebastian’s revelations undermine me, when he uses three times as many exclamation points in his puny post as I use in mine?
    More evidence of Hilzoy’s remarkable equanimity. I’m sure that I have spent too much time proctoring TOEFL tests, but when I see a post like Sebastian’s, I always ask ‘what does the man mean? What does he want to say?’ And a plausible interpretation would be that he wants to suggest that Hilzoy’s dismissing of the fact that Kos and Jerome got money is silly, because there is something to it. Yet there is no comment about John Thune paying bloggers in a race that he won by a narrow margin. Also, given that Kos and MyDD are (I’m not so familiar with MyDD, so it may be wrong about the latter) group sites, Seb’s suggesting that it is silly really doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny, unless they were deleting anti-Dean posts. Unfortunately, given the absence of information in the response, it’s hard to know what he’s thinking.
    A final point (that should go in the Posting rules thread, but that seems to be far far down the list) and I’ll move on to a SNL anecdote. The way you treat Hilzoy and all of you frontpage posters treat each other sets the tone for the comments. God forbid that we have no snark at all, and a good placed dollop of snark is a great way of reducing the temperature of the conversation if it’s set up right. But it is my humble suggestion that it be used very sparingly with at least some relationship to the content of the post and what you actually think.
    I promised an SNL anecdote, so here goes. I used to play in a Christian rock band and we would often go to play at other church’s youth groups on Saturday evening. As the trip was anywhere from 2 to 6 hours, and there would be a pot luck afterwards, we would usually do a homestay in the town and attend church service the next day. Well, in staying at one family’s house, the guitar player and I suggested that we watch SNL. This was the night that Hugh Hefner was the guest host. We missed the opening (where he sang ‘Thank heaven for little girls’, but we tuned in just in time for the skit where a rocket crewed completely by men attacked a ringed space station crewed by women. After the attack, both crews are shown smoking cigarettes, with the space station crew wondering if the rocket crew would attack again, and the rocket crew (with the exception of Garrett Morris) all too fatigued to do anything. Almost 30 years later, I still get embarrassed about that, though I’m sure (I hope) I’m the only one who remembers this.

  32. Liberal japonicus, I don’t mean to be rude, but I think your ability to interpret me seems to be severely lacking. Not only was my post pretty clearly in the same vein as hilzoy’s, but it is very difficult to see where you are getting your interpretation. Perhaps you don’t see the humor in hilzoy’s post? In mine?

  33. Hilzoy’s, yes, yours, sorry, nope, though I can see that you are trying. And I don’t find your observation that I lack the ability to interpret you rude, I’m just struck by the underlying assumption that it’s solely on me to interpret what you write correctly. It’s like saying someone is the world’s greatest comedian, even though no one laughs at the jokes…

  34. Hilzoy’s, yes, yours, sorry, nope, though I can see that you are trying. And I don’t find your observation that I lack the ability to interpret you rude, I’m just struck by the underlying assumption that it’s solely on me to interpret what you write correctly.
    yet you see the humor in Hilzoy’s post, though her underlying assumption seems to be the same.
    FWIW: I took sebastian’s comment the same as I took Hilzoys, and assumed both were making fun of the idiotic accusations about Kos en Jeremy.

  35. On rereading I might not be clear. So to prevent misunderstandings: I think you though that Sebastian was making fun of Hilzoy, I think that Sebastian was making fun *with* Hilzoy.

  36. dutchmarbel
    I see that you are right. I missed the last line of Sebastian’s 9:58 when I started writing and I didn’t think that the rest of the post applied to what I had written because my name wasn’t mentioned. Sebastian, my apologies, and Dutchmarbel, thanks for posting and making me re-read everything.

  38. I have to admit that I don’t think Hilzoy did anything wrong in accepting money
    But, at the same time I find it makes me uncomfortable, not knowing before hand after reading her posts.
    Again so no one takes this the wrong way, I can completely see myself doing exactly what Hilzoy did. I imagine if she thought I was some paid political consultant it might make her view me differntly. (I wouldn’t want to debate with anyone whether the little she got paid really qualifies as paid.)
    But, to be honest I feel a little mislead. Again before anyone goes off and to be clear I can see myself doing the exact same thing and I think some of you might feel a little mislead also.

  39. I have to admit that I don’t think Hilzoy did anything wrong in accepting money
    Um, smlook? Dude? You missed the minus signs.

  40. I have to admit that I don’t think Hilzoy did anything wrong in accepting money
    Um, smlook? Dude? You missed the minus signs.

  42. Yet another note to self: No more jokes. Ever. Conservatives have no sense of humor. (Except Sebastian, of course 🙂 )

  43. Sorry, I guess since I think this is a serious issue whether liberal or conservative… not saying that anyone else doesn’t… but that’s how I read it… the negative sign was easy to miss.

  44. I guess since I think this is a serious issue whether liberal or conservative
    There is more than one issue here.
    Issue #1 is the issue of whether Armstrong Williams secretly accepted illegal payments of taxpayer funds in exchange for disseminating administration propaganda. This is a very serious issue.
    Issue #2 is the issue of whether two bloggers publicly accepted legal payments of private funds in exchange for consulting on the technical issues of setting up a blog. This is not a serious issue.
    Issue #3 is the issue of whether certain partisan media figures and certain partisan blogs are using lies, misinformation and smear tactics about issue #2 above in a blatant and obvious attempt to distract attention away from the likely prospect of a large number of crimes similar to #1 above being revealed in the near future. This is a serious issue.
    The correct response to issue #2 is to laugh it off as a stupid joke. Issues #1 and #3 are very serious indeed. There are probably people who need to go to jail and there are definitely people who need to lose their jobs over issues #1 and #3. I hope that people such as yourself won’t allow themselves to be distracted by fabricated issues such as #2 instead of putting pressure on the people responsible for issues #1 and #3 to get the mess cleaned up.

  45. The administration has learned its lesson and after pushing for the distractive device of pointing out fully disclosed blogger consulting and calling it equal to the Armstrong Williams situation, they have decided to cut out the middleman all together.
    The Social Security Administration is now paying for its own ads to destroy itself. More efficient use of taxpayer money that way.

  47. Carsick, didn’t the Bush Admin do something similar with Medicare? Use Medicare funds to fund bogus cost analyses?

  48. Payola vs. Crapola

    Laura Gross of Dean For America issued a definitive response to Zephyr Teachout’s spurious accusations. Read it at Eschaton. Digby has much more. (Confidential to the Canadians: You probably haven’t heard about this story. There’s a reason. Nothing to

  49. Full disclosure:
    My former hometown, previously best known as the home of Amy Fisher’s escort service and Joey Buttafuoco’s auto body shop, now has an even more embarrasing claim to fame. And a hot dog van/prostitution scandal gives NY Post and Daily News headline writers so many easy targets that this story may never die.
    So far we have: “Wiener wagon a hotbed of sin,” “Judge speaks frank-ly at arraignment”, “a pair of Long Island hot dog vendors allegedly did their job with a little too much relish”, “Wiener Gal Hot to Roll”, “Hookers Relish Wieners”.

  50. Oh, can we play too?
    -Defense plea fails to cut the mustard
    -Police investigate mob links
    -Prostitution is with us for better or for wurst
    -fast food in more ways than one
    Trying to think of one that uses “kosher”

  51. Hot dog vendor’s toppings aren’t kosher.
    (Hmm, that sounds too British. “Extras” instead of “toppings”? I don’t eat much fast food.)
    (Other versions suppressed because of our younger audience).

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