There are times when even I, who lived there for a number of years, find that I don’t quite understand America. Thanks to a Brit magazine, The Economist, I feel that I’m finally getting the point of this Armstrong Williams thing:

The Department
of Education (which Mr Gingrich promised to abolish) has so much cash
swilling around that it can afford to pay a conservative pundit,
Armstrong Williams, $240,000 to promote an education bill that he would
have promoted for nothing.

It appears to be that residual Puritanism in the US culture. Why spend money when you don’t have to, that’s the scandal. Right?