Like Fertilizer to Stupid

Old Oliver Willis has thrown a ram because he suspects that many conservative columnists (and bloggers) have been or are being paid to wax favorable about Republicans.

Hmmm. So what surfaces today?

On Dean’s campaign, we paid Markos and Jerome Armstrong as consultants, largely in order to ensure that they said positive things about Dean. We paid them over twice as much as we paid two staffers of similar backgrounds, and they had several other clients.

While they ended up also providing useful advice, the initial reason for our outreach was explicitly to buy their airtime. To be very clear, they never committed to supporting Dean for the payment -- but it was very clearly, internally, our goal.

Heh.

"Screw 'em!" Zuniga was on the Dean Dole? The mind boggles.

I like this little tidbit:

Imagine Howard Dean hiring Maureen Dowd!

Surrre. Why buy the cow when the milk is free, eh?

zonkette: Financially Interested Blogging