That's a CounterPunch?

Armstrong Williams took cash to promote the Bushies' "No Child Left Behind" program. No one disputes that. The contract recently scooped by the USAToday itemizes exactly what he was supposed to do as a surrepitious promoter. As revealed, it should be enough to ruin his reputation, albeit a minor and not-especially interesting one. So, as a matter of payback to fuel the conservative commentators out there deperately trying to rebut this criticism of Armstrong, a WSJ piece today reports that the Dean Campaign paid two liberal bloggers ("Jerome Armstrong, who publishes the blog MyDD, and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, who publishes DailyKos"). Actually according to the WSJ's story, they got their story from none other than:

"Zephyr Teachout, the former head of Internet outreach for Mr. Dean's campaign, made the disclosure earlier this week in her own Web log, Zonkette. She said "to be very clear, they never committed to supporting Dean for the payment -- but it was very clearly, internally, our goal." The hiring of the consultants was noted in several publications at the time."

Is there a story here? Absol-phucking-lutely not. But you can be damn sure that the Drudges and the FOXes and their brethern will shout it from the hilltops as a counterpunch in upcoming newscycles to take the heat off of the illegal Department of Education contract with Armstrong Williams. Here's the difference, as noted even WITHIN the WSJ story:

"Mr. Moulitsas said they were paid $3,000 a month for four months and he noted that he had posted a disclosure near the top of his daily blog that he worked for the Dean campaign doing "technical consulting." Mr. Armstrong said he shut down his site when he went to work for the campaign, then resumed posting after his contract ended."

Gee, just imagine the scandal of an announced $12K contract with two young bloggers? Did Armstrong Williams present anything close to this sort of disclosure? Pul-leeze. And even though the blogosphere is commanding an impressively escalating number of eyeballs, no one will yet be so bold as to compare our audiences with those seen by CNN or other broadcast channels. Yet. If this is the way the Bushies protect their right to blatently, covertly propagandize, they're in for a fight they simply cannot win forever. That's my stance and you can quote me on it.

Oh, in case you missed it, Bush regrets his "Bring 'em on" taunt that has since led to an additional 1200 dead American troops (approximate estimate based on Bush making the gaffe in July 2003 and statistics pulled from the most current totals). I'll try to say so every day possible, but how these sorts of admissions coupled with those that WMDs were a hollow excuse for invading a nation can be buried in even the scrupulous media escapes me entirely. Such denial won't last forever.