I don’t know how I missed this story until now. It is related to yesterday’s post on the Medicare bill, the cost of which Bush’s people lied about in order to get it passed.

But now it seems that while one hand of the Bush administration was busy deceiving Congress, the other was busy deceiving the people, in the shape of fake news video segments. In the videos, “reporters” named “Karen Ryan” and “Alberto Garcia” appear as journalists who praise Bush’s Medicare plan. Problem is, they’re actors. In one video, actors playing a pharmacist and a customer discuss how great Bush’s Medicare plan is, saying that it “helps you better afford your medications.” Bush is also shown receiving a standing ovation. These videos were then sent to news stations, with scripts for the anchors to use to introduce them. Many TV stations did exactly that, presenting these fictional reporters and stories as the real thing, with no indication that they were produced by the government. The videos aired more than 50 times across the country as of a month ago.

Now, you see press releases all the time which are designed to look like they came from a media outlet when they really came straight from an interested party. But this goes way over the line. Calling actors “reporters,” faking videotaped scenes with actors pretending to be pharmacists and patients, failing to identify them as coming from the government, selling them as real–and just as disturbing, making all of them with federal money, when they are little more than thinly disguised political commercials for Bush.

The Bush administration says this is somehow OK because when they pitched it to the TV stations, they didn’t hide the fact they they were working for the government. But using federal money for what are effectively campaign commercials (“publicity or propaganda purposes” is the legal term used) is in violation of federal law. Yet another criminal offense on Bush’s record, and like so many others, one that he will never be held accountable for.