Ex-Columnist Bandow Quickly Gets New Job Despite Payola Controversy

By: E&P Staff Former columnist Doug Bandow, who resigned last week from Copley News Service for accepting payola, has quickly landed on his feet.

This Sunday, the disgraced ex-pundit will become vice president of policy at Citizen Outreach, an organization "focused on limited-government public policies."

Bandow resigned from Copley Dec. 20 -- several days after he admitted taking payola from indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff to write Op-Ed pieces favorable to some of Abramoff's clients. Bandow had previously resigned from the libertarian Cato Institute after BusinessWeek.com revealed he had accepted the bribes.

The former pundit said he took money to write 12-24 pieces starting in the mid-1990s. He received $2,000 for some of the commentaries.

Citizen Outreach, when announcing the Bandow hiring, made no mention of the payola scandal.

Bandow is one of several conservative commentators who, in a series of 2005 revelations, were found to have accepted money to promote programs and initiatives without disclosing the funding. They include Armstrong Williams of Tribune Media Services (which dropped Williams), Maggie Gallagher of Universal Press Syndicate, and the self-syndicated Michael McManus.