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August 27, 2005
Demotion and Driving While Black & Brown
Remember Larry Lindsey? How about Paul O'Neill? These men were top-level Bush Administration officials who were shown the door after daring to tell the truth.
Lindsey, a top economic advisor, was out of line for wildly predicting the Iraq War could cost as much as $200 billion. Cost to date? Over $190 billion and no signs of stopping.
O'Neill, the now former Treasury Secretary, and a man President Bush once praised for being a "straight shooter", temeritously suggested the second round of tax cuts might not be fiscally prudent, and was summarily canned. Today, the U.S. faces record budget deficits.
And then there was Richard S. Foster. He is the Medicare program's chief actuary, who was threatened with firing for having the audacity to say that last year's Medicare bill would cost far more than the White House was admitting. The White House has since admitted it will cost hundreds of billions more than it previously estimated.
Sensing a pattern perhaps?
This week we learned that Lawrence Greenfield, named by the President in 2001 to head the Bureau of Justice Statistics at the Justice Department, will be moving on to a lesser position with another agency.
The reason? The Bureau's recent study on racial profiling revealed that while White, African American and Latino drivers are about equally as likely to be stopped by the police, African Americans and Latinos are far more likely to have their vehicles searched, to have force used against them, and to be ticketed and/or arrested.
Tracy Henke, a political appointee who as an acting assistant attorney general oversaw the study, asked that those troubling statistics be removed from the report, and that only the data showing the same stoppage rate be left in. Mr. Greenfield refused, and he has been demoted. President Bush rewarded Ms. Henke by nominating her to a senior position in the Department of Homeland Security.
The study's findings are disturbing in and of themselves, and suggest that we have a long way to go in America to achieve equal treatment for all by the police. Those findings should be made public, particularly considering the study was paid for with taxpayer dollars.
But perhaps more disturbing is this administration's clear pattern of suppressing politically inconvenient information and punishing those who deliver it.
In addition to those examples already mentioned, recall the omission of troubling global warming data from the EPA's report and the subsequent departure of frustrated EPA Director Christie Todd Whitman.
And of course, look at the political beating the CIA has taken for daring to dispute the White House's prewar intelligence claims -- claims now abandoned -- that were used to sell the Iraq War to the American public.
You've got to give the Administration points for consistency. It will continue to insist on loyalty above all, and viciously punish any who stray from the party line, truth or consequences -- and possibly the country's future -- be damned.
Posted by houtopia at August 27, 2005 10:58 AM