We knew all along that the little bits of payolagate and the Bush propaganda machine we had uncovered or at least heard about were just the tip of the iceberg. It now appears that literally every single government agency has produced fake news reports that do not acknowledge they were produced by the government."Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers.

To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications.

Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.

I wonder how long before it is revealed that at least one columnist and/or TV pundit was paid off to support every single piece of Bush administration legislation? And it shows no sign of stopping: In testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, McClellan said Medicare would "fully comply with the law" regarding government-made video news releases. But he wouldn't pledge to ban their use, which Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., pressed him to do.

Federal agencies, including McClellan's, have sometimes sent video news releases, in which actors portray newscasters reporting on government activities, to television stations for public broadcast. Their use has increased over the last decade as TV news budgets shrank and stations scrambled to make more money from their local news shows.

The material is supposed to alert viewers that it's a government communication, but that can be edited out and TV stations and government policy promotion offices know it. Press reports have charged that the Bush administration, and to a lesser extent the Clinton administration, made it easy to edit out the government's role.

In those instances, video news releases constitute covert propaganda and violate federal laws that prohibit the use of public money for such purposes, according to the GAO

The Carpetbagger Report Via The Carpetbagger Report">sums up the problem: But since the GAO has no enforcement power, the White House has decided that it sees the law differently and will ignore the GAO's conclusion.

Opponents have limited options here. The administration won't budge, Republicans in Congress won't hold hearings, and Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department hardly seems poised to leap into action to investigate. There's been some talk about the FCC getting involved, but the agency hasn't expressed any interest yet.

Any chance significant public outrage will generate a change? Nah, I didn't think so either.

I am more optimistic. We need to keep trumpeting that the administration is doing this. There is simply no way they cannot be hurt by it, even if they keep pumping these things out. A strong, clever and well-targeted public campaign on this could especially help Democrats with younger voters, who tend to find nothing more abhorrent than being duped.