Posted 3/18/2004 04:48:00 PM by Douglas

The Bush propaganda machine is hard at work. Let's forget for a moment that the new Medicare bill signed last December is $134 Billion dollars over-budget already, but now we've found out that what we've suspected all along is true: they're just making stuff up. So in lieu of actually finding doctors to praise the new bill or reporters to cover it, what does the Department of Health and Human Services do? Hire actors, of course!

Federal investigators are scrutinizing television segments in which the Bush administration paid people to pose as journalists praising the benefits of the new Medicare law, which would be offered to help elderly Americans with the costs of their prescription medicines.

The videos are intended for use in local television news programs. Several include pictures of President Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd cheering as he signed the Medicare law on Dec. 8.

The materials were produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, which called them video news releases, but the source is not identified. Two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

But the production company, Home Front Communications, said it had hired her to read a script prepared by the government.

I've pretty much laughed it off when liberal Bush-haters compare the administration to Nazi Germany, but this is an egregious use of deceptive propaganda by a President. The Department of Health and Human Services paid actors to blatantly lie to the public. I can't believe this story isn't getting more ink. I heard about it on Comedy Central.

But let's not overlook the amount: $540 Billion dollars over 10 years just for Medicare? To put that in perspective, that's 20 times the amount it cost to put 12 men on the moon.

It's important to put government spending into the realm of your own narrow, unenlightened self-interest. Because really, isn't that what democracy is all about?