American taxpayers are paying for politically slanted, pro-McCain, anti-Obama "reporters" embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq.

Vets for Freedom - a pro-war organization that buys attack ads against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama - assembled a team of eight military veterans with dubious journalistic credentials to report "objectively" on what is occurring in Iraq.

The U.S. government, not any newspaper or television network, is picking up the tab for their airplane flights, body armor, food, lodging, transportation and bodyguards.

"The cost of security alone, which often means an armored car and a driver as well, drives the price of any Iraq trip sky-high," writes reporter Alex Koppelman in "Embedded Reporters or Republican Activists?" in Salon.com.

Is it ethical, or financially responsible, to spend taxpayer dollars to send what Salon calls "political activists and GOP operatives to Iraq in the guise of journalists, with the cooperation of the U.S. military and on the taxpayers' dime, so that the activists can come home and proselytize for the Republican presidential candidate's position on the war"?

Of course not. The Bush administration wouldn't dream of using tax money to fund real reporters who criticize the Iraq war. It lets taxpayers support only right-wing views by fake reporters.

The Weekly Standard, National Review and BlackFive.net - three conservative media organizations - issued the VFF team journalistic credentials. Each of those groups has close political ties to President Bush and GOP candidate John McCain.

Pete Hegseth, one of the "reporters," is VFF chairman and has campaigned for McCain. Joel Arends, another "reporter," is VFF's executive director and was on McCain's campaign payroll between March 2007 and February 2008.

University of Maryland journalism professor Christopher Hanson called the trip "subsidized journalism" that is "highly questionable" and "deserves scrutiny." Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., added: "It's not independent journalism."

Congress should investigate the ethics of using government money to bankroll trips of political activists to Iraq. And anyone who encounters their "journalistic" accounts should realize that it's just disguised campaign advertising.

Vets for Freedom - a pro-war organization that buys attack ads against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama - assembled a team of eight military veterans with dubious journalistic credentials to report "objectively" on what is occurring in Iraq.

The U.S. government, not any newspaper or television network, is picking up the tab for their airplane flights, body armor, food, lodging, transportation and bodyguards.

"The cost of security alone, which often means an armored car and a driver as well, drives the price of any Iraq trip sky-high," writes reporter Alex Koppelman in "Embedded Reporters or Republican Activists?" in Salon.com.

Is it ethical, or financially responsible, to spend taxpayer dollars to send what Salon calls "political activists and GOP operatives to Iraq in the guise of journalists, with the cooperation of the U.S. military and on the taxpayers' dime, so that the activists can come home and proselytize for the Republican presidential candidate's position on the war"?

Of course not. The Bush administration wouldn't dream of using tax money to fund real reporters who criticize the Iraq war. It lets taxpayers support only right-wing views by fake reporters.

The Weekly Standard, National Review and BlackFive.net - three conservative media organizations - issued the VFF team journalistic credentials. Each of those groups has close political ties to President Bush and GOP candidate John McCain.

Pete Hegseth, one of the "reporters," is VFF chairman and has campaigned for McCain. Joel Arends, another "reporter," is VFF's executive director and was on McCain's campaign payroll between March 2007 and February 2008.

University of Maryland journalism professor Christopher Hanson called the trip "subsidized journalism" that is "highly questionable" and "deserves scrutiny." Kelly McBride of the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., added: "It's not independent journalism."

Congress should investigate the ethics of using government money to bankroll trips of political activists to Iraq. And anyone who encounters their "journalistic" accounts should realize that it's just disguised campaign advertising.