Nice try, not buying that. I have looked at both

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated covert propaganda in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.

The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the public relations campaign had been known for months. The report Friday provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities.

Lawyers from the accountability office, an independent nonpartisan arm of Congress, found that the administration systematically analyzed news articles to see if they carried the message, The Bush administration/the G.O.P. is committed to education.

The auditors declared: We see no use for such information except for partisan political purposes. Engaging in a purely political activity such as this is not a proper use of appropriated funds.

The report also sharply criticized the Education Department for telling Ketchum Inc., a public relations company, to pay Mr. Williams for newspaper columns and television appearances praising Mr. Bush's education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act.

When that arrangement became public, it set off widespread criticism. At a news conference in January, Mr. Bush said: We will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet.

But the Education Department has since defended its payments to Mr. Williams, saying his commentaries were no more than the legitimate dissemination of information to the public.

The G.A.O. said the Education Department had no money or authority to procure favorable commentary in violation of the publicity or propaganda prohibition in federal law.

The ruling comes with no penalty, but under federal law the department is supposed to report the violations to the White House and Congress.

In the course of its work, the accountability office discovered a previously undisclosed instance in which the Education Department had commissioned a newspaper article. The article, on the declining science literacy of students, was distributed by the North American Precis Syndicate and appeared in numerous small newspapers around the country. Readers were not informed of the government's role in the writing of the article, which praised the department's role in promoting science education.

The auditors denounced a prepackaged television story disseminated by the Education Department. The segment, a video news release narrated by a woman named Karen Ryan, said that President Bush's program for providing remedial instruction and tutoring to children gets an A-plus.

Ms. Ryan also narrated two videos praising the new Medicare drug benefit last year. In those segments, as in the education video, the narrator ended by saying, In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting.

The television news segments on education and on Medicare did not state that they had been prepared and distributed by the government. The G.A.O. did not say how many stations carried the reports.

The public relations efforts came to light weeks before Margaret Spellings became education secretary in January. Susan Aspey, a spokeswoman for the secretary, said on Friday that Ms. Spellings regarded the efforts as stupid, wrong and ill-advised. She said Ms. Spellings had taken steps to ensure these types of missteps don't happen again.

The investigation by the accountability office was requested by Senators Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, both Democrats. Mr. Lautenberg expressed concern about a section of the report in which investigators said they could not find records to confirm that Mr. Williams had performed all the activities for which he billed the government.

The Education Department said it had paid Ketchum $186,000 for services performed by Mr. Williams's company. But it could not provide transcripts of speeches, articles or records of other services invoiced by Mr. Williams, the report said.

They don't want to buy any more of our debt, as our $ is almost worthless. They've been buying up homes in southern CA big-time. They already know that this most liberal "plan" will make the US self-destruct.

Those who voted for this man and refused to listen to many of us who said h'ed do this, don't cry to me. This is merely the beginning.

when Obama said that we aren't a Christian nation. I don't really agree with that given the number of Christians in this country and the fact that all of our money has In God We Trust on it....but whatever. I understood that he didn't want to tick off the secular part of our country because, as we know by the hate stated on this board, many non-believes truly hate believers.

However, when he said that we are a Muslim country.....I was like.....excuse me? We aren't a Christian nation but we are a Muslim country? Why couldn't he have just said that we are a country with many different religions and we have the freedom to practice whatever it is we choose or don't choose. I would have respected that a lot more than....we are not a Christian nation......we are a Muslim country.

I understand trying to make ties with Muslims who aren't extremists and want us dead, but to say something like that.....total BS. I just don't know what games our President is playing. You would even think that some of the atheists on this board who hate Christians would have a problem with Obama calling us a Muslim country too....but since Obama said it and some of them love Obama.....I'm sure they will, once again, give the big O a free pass as always.

and I've looked at McCain. I wouldn't vote for McCain if you paid me. Did you not HEAR him say he's the biggest free trader ever?