Jon Carroll on another case of commentator-buying

JON CARROLL: "Well, here's a thing: A senior fellow at the Cato Institute, Doug Bandow, wrote at least 24 columns for the Copley News Service at the request of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who paid generously for the thoughtful thoughts thoughtfully expressed. Business Week broke the story; when it came out, Bandow resigned from Cato and acknowledged a 'lapse in judgment.'

Lapse? One column is a lapse, maybe; 24 columns is a lifestyle choice. Maybe he believed everything he wrote; I dunno. Seems like a darn slippery slope. And I guarantee you that he chose his subject matter with an eye toward Abramoff's pet issues. That looks bad. It suggests that the press is for sale."

UPDATE: Pittsburg paper won't publish anything Bandow writes ever again: "The prose of Doug Bandow never will appear on these pages again. It turns out that Mr. Bandow, the once-respected senior scholar at the Cato Institute, was on the take. And we find that as inexcusable as we do sickening."