MORE REACTIONS TO MAGGIE GALLAGHER/HHS/WASH POST PIECE: Various

Jonathan H. Adler: "The Gallagher kerfuffle conceals one of the Beltway's tidy little secrets: Hundreds, if not thousands, of policy experts and advocates receive federal grants and contracts. Federal funding of experts, advocacy groups, and other nonprofits is so widespread that it scarcely ever warrants attention. The real scandal is not that a federal agency paid Maggie Gallagher for her expertise, but that federal agencies dole out millions in taxpayer dollars each and every year to activist organizations that turn around and call for Congress to grant these agencies even greater power. This is the real 'political payola' in Washington, and it is about time it received some attention." (more)

Editor & Publisher: "Now that two syndicated columnists have admitted taking government money for promoting certain points of view, is the growing scrutiny of all commentators long overdue? Or is the new scrutiny just a kind of witch hunt? In the wake of Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher's ethics problems, E&P asked a dozen columnists if they have any ghosts in their pasts and what ethics rules they believe should be set for columnists.

"In all cases, the columnists flatly opposed any government payoff for promotion, said they had never engaged in such actions, and had rarely been offered payment. Kathleen Parker was typical. 'It's called conflict of interest,' she said. 'It's very simple. If someone's paying you and you're going to write about a subject related to that person or entity, than you have to disclose it. Period. End of story.'" (more)

David Frum: "Gallagher was not paid for advocacy. A well-known expert on family and marriage, she was hired by the Department of Health and Human Services to write and edit HHS materials summarizing the state of research on those issues. This is the kind of work that policy experts exist to do. It is work of a kind that the US government regularly purchases from a wide range of experts and consultants. Perhaps most importantly, and unlike Williams, Gallagher was paid at what looks like a market rate: a total of $21,400 for her work drafting articles and presentations for officials of HHS to use. ... The government was not trying to influence her thinking. It was paying her to have access to the results of her thinking." (more)

Howard Kurtz has a roundup here.

Kate O'Beirne: "Based on the undisputed facts, Howie Kurtz manufactured a controversy and with it a wholly new standard for (presumably only conservative) policy experts who do work for the government. HHS was not paying Maggie Gallagher to say she believed what they did, but rather to learn what she knows. Had we known and disclosed the work she did for HHS, she wouldn't have looked conflicted, she would have looked even more credentialed as a recognized expert on marriage. That's why we should disclose--to tell our readers 'listen up' Maggie Gallagher really knows what she's talking about." (link)

Glenn Reynolds: "An early report from Drudge made things sound a lot like the Armstrong Williams story -- payola in exchange for support. But the actual story from Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post makes clear that Gallagher was actually paid for other work, and in one case the 'federal money' was merely money from a nonprofit organization that got federal grants. If there's a story here, it's one that probably applies to half the pundits in Washington. ...The fact is that people like to point to appearances of impropriety and conflicts of interest because it's a way of taking a shot without taking a stand." (more)

Michael Triplett is still posting quite a lot on it here.

If people see other especially interesting, important, or well-phrased reactions--as with all marriage news--they should send it to me at the email address you reach by clicking the link below.
posted by Eve at 3:40 AM | Link |

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