# Reeder's Official Bush-Bashing Thread
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [March 12, 2004, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987 "2004-03-12T23:54:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 11
### Author:  [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2004, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/201 "2004-04-23T14:18:33Z")
> [@](#):
>
> There’s continuing buzz over a comment national security adviser Condoleezza Rice made at what was apparently an off-the-record Washington power dinner
> …
> Rice, according to an account in this week’s New York magazine, at one point said: "As I was telling my husb . . . " then stopped and said, “As I was telling President Bush. . . .”
[Wild Rice](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34942-2004Apr22.html)
---
### Author:  [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2004, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reeders-official-bush-bashing-thread/233987/202 "2004-05-20T16:52:24Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Originally Posted by **SimonX** [_here_](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=4652749#post4652749)
>
> In the spirit of things:
>
> \*[US government faked Bush news reports](http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5862.htm)
> Chris Tryhorn
> Tuesday March 16, 2004 “The Guardian”
> The US government admitted it paid actors to pose as journalists in video news releases sent to TV stations intending to convey support for new laws about health benefits.
>
> Lawyers from the investigative arm of Congress discovered the tapes as part of an investigation into federal money that was used to publicise the new law.
>
> “Video news releases” of this sort have been used in the US since the 1980s, but the way they blur the lines between news and advertising troubles many media experts and campaigners.
>
> Guidelines were subsequently drawn up [in Europe] to label video news releases as such - a category which
> \*How’d I do?
[GAO Says HHS Broke Laws With Medicare Videos](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41077-2004May19.html)
_By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 20, 2004; Page A01_
The Bush administration violated two federal laws through part of its publicity campaign to promote changes in Medicare
The General Accounting Office concluded that the Department of Health and Human Services illegally spent federal money on what amounted to covert propaganda by producing videos about the Medicare changes that were made to look like news reports.
… **the GAO’s legal opinion was not prompted by Democratic complaints. GAO officials said yesterday that they had decided on their own to examine the legality of the videos** …
…the GAO decision said the [news report segments] ran afoul of the law forbidding federal spending on covert propaganda because “in each news report, the content was attributed to an individual purporting to be a reporter but actually hired by an HHS subcontractor.”
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