09 Jan 2005 Ryan Sager: Law and the Armstrong Williams Case

I’ve been reading various bloggers’ takes on the Armstrong Williams case (La Shawn Barber, Ramblings’ Journal, Booker Rising, Michelle Malkin, Croooow Blog, Tapscott’s Copy Desk, Joust the Facts, She Who Will Be Obeyed! and many, many others), but I didn’t see anyone address the issue I was wondering about: What does the law actually say about the legality of the kind of payments the Department of Education made?

That’s is, until I saw Ryan Sager’s blog, Miscellaneous Objections. Check it out if you are past the outrage stage and what to learn what the law actually says.

It seems to me the law itself is the paramount issue. If this is legal, and folks don’t think it should be (as I don’t), the law should be changed. If it isn’t legal and it happened anyway, why and how can it be stopped? It is easy enough to say Armstrong should not have quietly taken the payments, but he’s still just one person. If he stops, that doesn’t stop the practice by anyone else, now and in the future.

As a side note, Mark Tapscott’s coverage of this includes some very useful information and a number of links about filing FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests without paying legal fees. Some folks might want to bookmark it.

Oh, and as another side note, since The National Center for Public Policy Research sponsors Project 21, the national leadership group of black conservatives: The National Center/Project 21 has never received, nor applied for, federal funding nor funding from any state.