BREAKING: Jackson ‘Deeply Regrets’ His ‘Anecdotal Remarks’; Inspector General Opens Review
BREAKING: Jackson ‘Deeply Regrets’ His ‘Anecdotal Remarks’; Inspector General Opens Review
On April 28, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson told a real estate group that he had canceled a government contract because the contractor criticized President Bush. (If true, Jackson’s conduct appears to violate federal law.)
ThinkProgress has learned that HUD Inspector General Kenneth M. Donohue, Sr. has launched a review of Jackson’s conduct.
We have also obtained a statement issued by Jackson a short while ago:
I deeply regret the anecdotal remarks I made at a recent Texas small business forum and would like to reassure the public that all HUD contracts are awarded solely on a stringent merit-based process. During my tenure, no contract has ever been awarded, rejected, or rescinded due to the personal or political beliefs of the recipient.
Jackson now says his remarks were “anecdotal.” This seems to be in conflict with the latest statement from his spokeswoman, Dustee Taylor, who said Jackson told “a made up story.”
UPDATE: GovExec.com has more on the story.
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Yet another member of the Bush43 Administration is led off to jail….
How many does that make now?
May 10th, 2006 at 5:41 pmOooops…did I say that out loud?!?
May 10th, 2006 at 5:44 pmI didn’t say exactly what you heard, but if I did, I didn’t mean it not really besides my spokesperson who just started her unannounced planned vacation says I said something different, and if there is videotape I was forced…not really, but hopefully I have said enough to get everybody to either believe one of my lies or become so confused they will give it up in disgust, besides we really never say exactally what we mean I was just following the fine example set by my fearless leader in the SOTU speech……..
May 10th, 2006 at 5:45 pmWe should just go ahead and start counting the people who HAVEN’T been indicted. I’m just fascinated that he told the story in the context of educating others as to how government works. He got this far in his career without finding out that this behavior is illegal. It just goes to show how pervasive it is.
May 10th, 2006 at 5:45 pmI didn’t say exactly what you heard, but if I did, I didn’t mean it not really besides my spokesperson who just started her unannounced planned vacation says I said something different, and if there is videotape I was forced…not really, but hopefully I have said enough to get everybody to either believe one of my lies or become so confused they will give it up in disgust, besides we really never say exactally what we mean I was just following the fine example set by my fearless leader in the SOTU speech……..stay tuned for the next version of the non liberal reality we all now live in by order of the most magnificant leader to ever walk this planet…….
I hope this clears everything up…..LOL
May 10th, 2006 at 5:47 pmI suspect what he regrets is the potentiol loss of his comfy 6 figure government job.
May 10th, 2006 at 5:48 pmOf course this must be investigated. Did he say those words to the contractor or not? Don’t tell one lie and then another, and then deny it.
May 10th, 2006 at 5:53 pmAs I read earlier today, what would have prompted a newly signed contractor to say he doesn’t approve of Bush? Was he asked for a “campaign donation” as payback for getting the contract? Is extortion at the heart of this?
Photo Op of the Day:
President Bush to HUD’s Alphonso Jackson:
May 10th, 2006 at 5:54 pm“Scratch my back, I’ll rub your bald head.”
I don’t think he knows what anecdotal means. His next sentence seems to imply that the “anecdote” never happened, since allegedly all contracts are awarded on a merit-based process. Maybe he thinks an anecdote is just a funny story that’s not necessarily true.
May 10th, 2006 at 6:01 pmCan we start referring to him as Bush29 (%) instead of Bush43?
May 10th, 2006 at 6:05 pmwhile there investigating the guy don’t forget those other scandels he was accused of, maybe they deserve a look instead of being ignored
May 10th, 2006 at 6:05 pmThere is definately something there (i.e granting contracts solely based on loyality to Bush)
Because they really cleaned this mess up quickly…
what in 24 hours the story was exposed, rebutted, revised, and ended with an admission of regret…
either this Josh Bolten is good or something shady is being covered up….
I lean towards the latter……..
May 10th, 2006 at 6:07 pmI’m surprised that Jackson didn’t argue, “If I’d really intended to be taken seriously, I would have said he didn’t get the contract because he didn’t have any hookers or bribes.”
May 10th, 2006 at 6:09 pmEven if the event in his anecdote never happened, there is certainly wrong-doing going on. It has been said that he presented his “anecdote” in front of an audience. If he failed to tell the audience it was a totally false story, then he left them with the impression that they were required to support the Bush administration if they wanted government contracts.
May 10th, 2006 at 6:09 pm*jumping up & down*
May 10th, 2006 at 6:12 pmI won’t resign, I won’t, I won’t, I WON’T!!
Anecdotal means it may have happened right? So if he is saying this then there is good chance he was telling the truth the first time right?
May 10th, 2006 at 6:14 pmRemember: No one is allowed to a Bush “open” forum without being a repuke devotee
May 10th, 2006 at 6:14 pmI agree with several things. I, too, think that what he “regrets” is the possible loss of a nice cushy job. I am also highly suspicious of the explanations given for what the remarks were supposed to be about in the first place. “Anecdotal”?? As someone else said, I don’t think he knows what the word means. Even if he meant to use the word “illustrative”, it’s still bad! What was the message this “story” (real or not) was meant to convey? That if it was up to him, only Bush supporters would get contracts? And what was that stupidity about a Bush-hater using the money to “campaign” against the president? Now why would he think that people do that with government contracts? That’s what I want to know. As someone else mentioned earlier, does this mean he thinks it’s okay to use these government contracts to campaign for the president?
How did this guy ever get confirmed for a job in the line of succession to the presidency?
May 10th, 2006 at 6:16 pmHow did this guy ever get confirmed for a job in the line of succession to the presidency?
Comment by Wayne A. Schneider — May 10, 2006 @ 6:16 pm
The same way all the others got in Wayne Loyalty uber alles.
May 10th, 2006 at 6:22 pmJackson now says his remarks were “anecdotal.†- - Much like George Bush, Jackson speaks Norm Crosby-ese and while saying ‘anecdotal’ his addled brain was thinking ‘antidotal.’ As in, “I hope my latest spin on this mess acts as an antidote for this mess my mouth got me in.”
May 10th, 2006 at 6:25 pmThis is just a microcosm of what happens all over the place. This man merely shed light on it.
May 10th, 2006 at 6:28 pmAt least there was a time when people pretended not to do this, and self monitored what they say. These jerks have become so arrogant, they don’t even bother to pretend to follow the law anymore.
May 10th, 2006 at 6:30 pm[…] The HUD inspector General has opened an investigation, which seems like a no brainer as far as investigations go. Find the contractor in question (as Josh Marshall asks, how many DC-based minority-owned media contractors with business before HUD can there be?) and ask him whether it happened. If it happened like the “anecdote” described, Jackson is gone like yesterday’s news. […]
May 10th, 2006 at 6:32 pmwhat cannot be forgotten is that beofre the media outcry over this, yesterday…he thought that it was ok to say this, real or not, as an example of business politics in Bush’s America…and if he thought this was okay to say, what is he hiding, what is not okay to talk about, how corrupt has the administration gotten if this acceptable…if someone just thought this in another administration and there was the smallest appearance of cronyism it would stick out as being corrupt, but here it was not only ok to think it, but use it as an example of how things are in a speech!
May 10th, 2006 at 6:34 pmJackson probably got the job through his frat boy friends in college.
May 10th, 2006 at 6:37 pmexactly 22, exactly
May 10th, 2006 at 6:38 pmWho’s dumber, the guy who lost the contract or the guy who admitted he canned the contract because the other guy hates Bushboy.
May 10th, 2006 at 6:41 pmWhen did ‘anecdotal’ start to mean ‘false?’
May 10th, 2006 at 6:41 pm#7, marie.
Good Question.
May 10th, 2006 at 6:43 pmYou know it’s bad when the guy’s defense is, “I LIED!”
May 10th, 2006 at 6:50 pmAlmost as funny as when Reagan said the missiles were on their way to the USSR or when Dimwit joked about not finding WMD under his office furniture. These guys are just too damn funny!
May 10th, 2006 at 6:54 pmYeah, and now he says the story was “apocryphal.” This guy needs to brush up on his vocabulary. According to http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=apocryphal , the word means “Of questionable authorship or authenticity.” You don’t tell a story about something that supposedly happened to you and then call it “apocryphal.” You might as well hang a large sign on your forehead that says “LIAR!”, because that’s what he called himself when he claimed the story he told about something that happened to him was “apocryphal.”
May 10th, 2006 at 6:57 pmThe lies are so wide spread, they can’t even tell any truth.
May 10th, 2006 at 7:24 pm‘Just kidding’, ‘I didn’t mean it’, ‘I didn’t mean it that way’, bla bla…..a lie is a lie.
Look, even if he WAS telling the audience a fiction, from the transcript reported, it sounds as though he presented it as fact. That could be construed as lyiing, which, admittedly wouldn’t be as bad as actually cancelling a contract because of political views.
But even if he was lying about the incident described, it’s pretty clear that he believes that he’s describing the right way to do business as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. That right there is reason enough for him to get canned, no?
May 10th, 2006 at 7:29 pmForget the anecdotal part of all of this…Here is the money quote that is certainly not anecdotal:
May 10th, 2006 at 8:37 pmI wonder if DUMBYA will pull the plug on this CONSERVATIVE radio host who basically called him an IDIOT, but properly called him the WORST PRESIDENT EVER!
http://www.kabc.com/ mcintyre/ listingsEntry.asp?ID=432586&PT=McIntyre+in+the+Morning
May 10th, 2006 at 8:46 pmHis defence is that he was lying-oh yeah,I smell kool aid
May 10th, 2006 at 8:53 pmanecdote as defined by Oxford: ‘a short entertaining story about a real incident or person’
May 10th, 2006 at 10:11 pmThis one pissed off the morning crowd. Now to piss off the evening crowd:
Here’s my defense of HUD Secretary Jackson against you pinko commie liberals ;)
May 10th, 2006 at 10:29 pmThe man, like nearly everyone in the Bush Administration, is a goddam baldfaced liar. These people are truly bad eggs.
May 10th, 2006 at 10:30 pmAs aomeone at DailyKos (I think) pointed out, someone seeking a federal contract is unlikely to simply announce that they don’t support the president out of the blue. What’s more likely is that the contractor made this remark in response to being asked to make a campaign contribution!
May 10th, 2006 at 10:33 pmAnecdotal is the new inconceivable!
“You keep using that word…I do not think it means, what you think it means.”
May 10th, 2006 at 11:14 pmBush Regime flunkies are pathetic and confused imbeciles on prozac > case closed for Jackson!
May 11th, 2006 at 2:07 amYou know, I bet ol GW has 3 or 4 rooms in the WH just filled with already signed presidential pardons to hand out to all of his friends as he leaves office. Along with a few last multi billion dollar no-bid contracts for Haliburton. Probably has Diebold already on retainer to rig the election in 2012 so Jeb can run….
May 11th, 2006 at 2:39 amAnecdotes are not false statements. It’s a usually short narrative of an interesting, amusing, or biographical incident (from Webster’s). Think of Reservoir Dogs. It’s an amusing story meant to win over an audience. The audience is meant to take you at your word.
This guy’s a creep.
May 11th, 2006 at 6:59 amMr. Jackson if you’re nasty…
How many working days until sorry, sorry HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson resigns, probably late on a Friday, too late to make the 6:00 news?…
May 11th, 2006 at 12:57 pmThe Bart Simpson Defense: “I didn’t do it nobody saw me do it you can’t prove anything I promise I’ll never do it again.”
May 11th, 2006 at 4:55 pmThe most feared words in the annals of Republican lore: “HAS THE JURY REACHED A VERDICT?”
May 11th, 2006 at 8:24 pmSeeing the dis-likes of liars like Alphonso Jackson seeking to out-lie their boss, Liar Bush, is becoming just as routine as Bush lying himself on EVERY issue is.
BlackCommentator.com [http://www.blackcommentator.com] hasn’t yet weighed in on this story about A. Jackson’s latest anti-black [and illegal] action, but I’m sure they will. Wonder when the national black talk radio channel XM 169/THE POWER will be barbecuing Jackson about this?
THE POWER’s black female talk radio host, Dr. Barbara Reynolds, barbecued Jackson for his anti-black remarks last year about saying that the 9th ward of New Orleans should be turned into a parking lot, for Reynolds said it was representative of Jackson’s (and other right wing white conservatives AND right wign black conservatives) anti-black right wing racist desires to see all African-Americans dead.
I’m sure that Reynolds, along with “The Black Eagle” Joe Madison, George Wilson, Dr. Wilmer Leon, Ambrose I. Lane Senior, Jay Bryant, and Mark Thompson, along with THE POWER’s black callers, will all be blasting and barbecuing Jackson till he’s overdone and disintegrated for this latest lie he’s told!
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