Bush Administration Official Calls Propaganda An “Outreach Effort.”

Roderick Paige, the Secretary of Education, defended paying right-wing pundit Armstrong Williams $240,000 of taxpayer money to promote Bush’s No Child Left Behind education reform law. Paige called the payment an “outreach effort.” Democratic Senators has asked the Department of Education to turn over relevant records of the case to investigate if they violated a federal ban on spending taxpayer money for propaganda purposes. Jonathan Adelstein, a Federal Communications Commissioner, said that the FCC should investigate whether Williams broke the law as well by his actions.