When all else fails, lie

But what would you expect from the Bush Administration. They do not hesitate to falsify information that leads us into a bloody war in Iraq, so it is nothing to misrepresent a federal commission report favorable to transit. The National Corridors Initiative site has it all, including the parts that the grown-ups don’t want Congress and the people to read.

WASHINGTON —The back-room editors of the Bush Administration, who apparently take their cue from Soviet-style air-brushing, are it again, and this time the target is one of the giants of the conservative movement in America.
While the media focus was on the Bush Administration’s use of Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters to denounce the bipartisan outcome of the Congressionally-mandated Surface Transportation Commission — which she officially chaired — the National Corridors Initiative has learned that an important pro-light-rail section of the report, written by Commission member Paul Weyrich and adopted by a 9-3 majority vote of the commission, has disappeared from the Commission’s final report.

If true, these actions could lead to Contempt of Congress charges against the Bush Administration employees found responsible for falsely editing — in effect, lying about — the content of the final report of the commission.

Weyrich, who founded the Heritage Foundation and also founded and is chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, has been a leader of the American conservative movement since the days of the Reagan Administration. He is also one of the most knowledgeable and sought after supporters of public transportation especially light rail, in America.

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Filed under: Passenger Rail Transportatio Policy