"I Lied"

Not long ago, people in Washington who found themselves uncomfortably quoted would invariably claim, "I was taken out of context". That's so 1990's; the new defense is, "I lied". Because it's normal to lie in massively self-damaging ways.

Exhibit A, of course, is Zacarias Moussaui, who claims he lied about his involvement in the September 11 plot.

Exhibit B, however, is perhaps more poignant, because he's a cabinet-level appointee, not a terrorist crackpot. Secretary Alphonso Jackson of HUD (disclaimer: he's my old boss's boss's boss) recently told a group of minority businessmen that another minority businessman lost out on a HUD contract because he disparaged the president (disclaimer: I worked for a HUD minority contractor). Now, Jackson says he lied. The anecdote never happened. He was just trying to scare a bunch of impressionable darkies. Oops, that's a lie too.

Handing out contracts based on politics is not something I ever saw at HUD (and I did see a good deal of contracting), but handing out contracts based on minority status is rampant. So we know Jackson is lying when he says "all HUD contracts are awarded solely on a stringent merit-based process". Does OSDBU mean anything to you, Mr. Jackson? Of course, you can't blame Jackson for championing racial and political profiling: he'd never be where he is now if it wasn't for being black and playing politics for years.