While no one can stop Barbour from flipping the chronology -- and essentially lying to the public -- one might expect the New York Times to explain the facts. But the safe career play these days is to avoid speaking any truth that might get you in trouble.
[The Times' print edition offered no balance at all, but the online version did include a paragraph from Barbour's speech acknowledging that Obama faced an economic crisis upon taking office.]
Denying Pensions
Clearly, it is a far bigger offense in Washington to tell troublesome truths than to slide along with comfortable lies and distortions. According to the National Whistleblowers Center, Congress is even contemplating how to extend fear of retribution into a person's retirement.
The group reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee may slip into an appropriations bill a provision to empower the Director of National Intelligence and the heads of intelligence agencies to strip retired employees of their pensions by simply accusing them of disclosing classified information.
"This provision is so dangerous because intelligence agencies often retaliate against whistleblowers by accusing of them of leaking information," the group said. "Stripping pensions based on accusations of classified leaks will be yet another way that the government can retaliate against whistleblowers.
"On the whim of the DNI, whistleblowers will lose their life savings and be forced into poverty."
If only the Democrats would be half as aggressive in enforcing laws that were violated by the Bush administration as they've been in pursuing and punishing people who tell the truth.
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