A Little Big Lie
I didn't say a thing about this administration sharing responsibility for the cave-in which killed the miners in West Virginia. I didn't say so, not because the administration is blameless, but because there is plenty of blame to go around. The fines were too small even under previous administrations. The mine itself was guilty of countless safety violations; though the fines it received for those violations were anemic, it had a responsibility to fix the problems. The workers do not press enough for greater safety, because not following the minimum legal standards for safety would close many marginal mines and cost jobs. And the mine has no incentive to fix the problems as long as paying the fines is many times cheaper than meeting their legal responsibilities to their workers.
No, I was going to keep my mouth shut on this one. That was before the Mine Safety and Health Administration began lying about the record. A Knight Ritter article said the median amount of the already-anemic fines levied by the MSHA for safety violations have plummeted 43% since the beginning of the Bush administration. The MSHA claimed that was untrue, and requested Knight Ritter use a different methodology in analyzing the fines. Using the methodology suggested by the government, Knight Ritter discovered--surprise!--that fines have dropped by 43% since the beginning of the Bush administration.
Four independent statistical experts took a look at the numbers, and they all concluded that the Knight Ritter report was accurate in every particular. The MSHA continues to claim the Knight Ritter report is false. They refuse to answer any questions about the source of their own "statistics", which do not correspond in any way to their own documents.
The Big Lie is a classic political maneuver. You utter blatant untruths, you utterly deny reality, and you hope that at least some people will be convinced, because few ordinary people are so utterly shameless to lie when proof of the lie is all around. Some people will be convinced, because they want to believe their government wouldn't deliberately lie to them. This isn't a big Big Lie--it isn't, say, like claiming we didn't go to war in Iraq because of oil--but it is more of the same. And it's the White House trying to duck out of its right share of blame for deaths that are at least partially their fault.
Which is why, you know, I have to point out the Emperor has a bare ass.
10:42:27 PM 
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