"Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton’s 1791 report on manufacturing promoted policies to grow the nation into a commercial republic. President Woodrow Wilson’s Committee on Public Information recruited 75,000 members of the public to give speeches in favor of such World War I measures as Liberty Bonds and the draft, blanketed the nation with pamphlets and posters, and generally set in motion the modern publicity apparatus that exists today

A decade ago, the Government Accountability Office faulted the second Bush administration’s Department of Health and Human Services for overselling the benefits of the new Medicare law."

Hardly a propaganda essay discrediting the liberal executive branch.

Well, if you want to draw partisan lines on content, all of those are seemingly big-government actions (which is natural, for things that government would want to propagandize): governmental policies to influence the market to behave in certain ways, intervention in foreign wars, and centralized, taxpayer-funded healthcare that was controversial within the Republican ranks.

This is metapolitics, designed to poison the well about all government actions and support conservative/libertarian positions in general. It's fine and useful to appear to be independent of partisan politics.

Is an opinion still valid if Republicans happen to share it?

Absolutely. But a think tank is an opinions-for-hire racket, whether conservative or liberal. So it's useful to note the source.

Just an FYI, but vender is a valid alternative spelling for vendor. It's 'the new yorker's' preferred spelling, and may bleed to other writers.

> These are just some recent examples of the executive branch using our tax dollars to shape our opinions.

Yes, and where will they be when the "executive branch" is their side, doing the same thing?

Presumably in the same place. You'll note the reference to the Bush administration touting its Medicare law.