Conservative pundit paid by Bush to help promote marriage policy testifies on Bush's gay marriage policy in Congress as an "independent expert"

Arch-conservative pundit Maggie Gallagher was caught in the last day as having taken money from the Bush administration to help them "promote marriage" while she wrote about "promoting marriage" as a private journalist and didn't disclose her cozy relationship with the administration. It now gets even better.

After getting her $40,000 from the administration to help them promote their marriage agenda, Gallagher reportedly testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of President Bush's Gay-Bashing Amendment to make gays second class citizens in the US Constitution.

Now, did those Senators know that when Gallagher was testifying on behalf of the Bush administration's position on marriage issues, as supposedly an independent expert on marriage, that she had in fact recently accepted money, a good deal of it, to help Bush promote his position on marriage issues? Didn't the Senators deserve to decide for themselves whether Gallagher was truly offering her independent vide on Bush's proposal, or whether she was influenced in her views to the tune of $40,000?

No one knows if Gallagher was or wasn't influenced by the cash the Bushies paid her. But testifying as an independent expert on administrtation policy on an issue when you were just paid to help promote that policy sure could be taken as some to mean that you're not really that independent anymore. Or at the very least, people have the right to know and then decide for themselves.

It's nice to know that the family values crowd values winning over values.