Here’s a proposal. You produce ethanol. You give me a check for $312,500 and I will go to Iowa to give a pious tribute to the awesomeness of ethanol. If any reporters ask me about my speech, I will simply say, “I am not a lobbyist for ethanol.” There is no need to retain my services for a second year. I will make do with the three hundred grand.
IRS filings show that Growth Energy, a coalition of ethanol producers, paid Gingrich’s consulting firm $312,500 – one of the group’s largest single expenditures that year. But a Growth Energy spokesman told the Center [for Public Integrity]
that Gingrich was not hired again in 2010.
This is a major problem in contemporary American political culture. When people can simply lie in the most plain and obvious way possible, and still get taken seriously by the media, then the media simply isn’t doing its job. Also, too, see: Donald Trump.
