Salazar - You lie, too!

It looks like Barack Obama's habitual tendency to stretch the truth is spreading through the cabinet.  Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar is infamously credited as the father of the moratorium imposed on off-shore drilling following the BP well explosion.  The ban is expected to destroy massive numbers of jobs in the gulf.  In Louisiana alone, Gov. Jindal expects 10,000 jobs to be lost in the short term, and twice that number if the moratorium is extended beyond the current six months.  

Salazar claimed to have the support of the National Academy of Engineering, a panel of industry experts. However, five of the seven panel members say they not only didn't endorse the moratorium, they call it a bad idea.  "It will not measurably reduce risk further and it will have a lasting impact on the nation's economy which may be greater than that of the oil spill," the engineers said in a letter, urging Mr. Salazar "to overcome emotion with logic."

And, in a second letter, the engineers say Salazar "should be free to recommend whatever he thinks is correct, but he should not be free to use our names to justify his political decisions."

As recently as just last year, Obama ripped the Bush administration for making "a false choice between sound science and moral values," and vowed to let scientists do their work unfettered by a political agenda.  But, as with so many other promises from the President, this one seems to merit Congressman Joe Wilson's accurate condemnation, "You lie!" 

Playing loose with the facts and making political decisions rather than relying on good science has marked the amateurish, make-it-up-as-we-go response from the administration.  As with most everything else they touch, life goes on just fine for the big shots, while the lives of the real people are turned upside down, jobs are lost, and they end getting the bill, too, for the politicians mistakes.