They Don’t Even Lie Well Any More
27th April 2012
Not that they ever did….
This comes back to mind with the firestorm over the comments of EPA regional administrator Al Armendariz where he described his philosophy of regulatory enforcement that’s right out of Scalia’s analogy:
“I was in a meeting once and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement. It’s kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean: they’d go into little Turkish towns somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they’d run into, and they’d crucify them and then, you know, that town was really easy to manage over the next few years.”
Of course, Armendariz should be fired immediately. Of course, that won’t happen. Instead, he’s issued a lame apology: “I apologize to those I have offended and regret my poor choice of words. It was an offensive and inaccurate way to portray our efforts to address potential violations of our nation’s environmental laws.” Yes, it was offensive, but it was a highly accurate description. His only mistake was candor. The White House is backpedalling just as fast as it can, but Jay Carney has become an especially unconvincing liar.
April 27th, 2012 at 09:26
All together now: What if George Bush or someone in his administration had said that?