HUD Nazi, part III: tall tales in the West

The story gets to be more and more fun. And, by God, we could use some fun: plain vanilla deceit and political favoritism are a lot safer in Housing and Urban Development than in other departments. Of course, it's the same story all over The Regime.

Now, according to Think Progress, HUD Secretary Jackson claims it's all a misunderstanding. Here is his statement, as posted by TP:

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 During my tenure, no contract has ever been awarded, rejected, or rescinded due to the personal or political beliefs of the recipient.

TP notes the contradiction between this version and a statement by HUD "spokeswoman, Dustee Taylor, who said Jackson told 'a made up story.'" Yes, strictly speaking an "anecdote" is a true story (or a story that claims to be true), but one that doesn't necessarily represent typical reality.

The problem then is that Jackson's statement becomes nonsensical. (I know, I know.) If his remarks were truly "anecdotal", then there was at least one contract that was "rejected or rescinded due to the personal or political beliefs of the recipient", contrary to his own statement. It may be that in RepublicanSpeak, "anecdotal" has come to mean "a story I made up."

There is precedence for this: classic Republican "welfare queen" stories, since The Great Communicator himself, are anecdotes about the abuse of public welfare. They were likely to have been true stories, but dishonestly used to imply that all public welfare recepients were corrupt, and that therefore the welfare program was not beneficial. Of course, they don't have to be true, as long as enough people believe them. And since the overarching goal of such anecdotalism is dishonesty anyway, what's the difference?

QED Jackson is dishonest because violated the law in his partisan treatment of a HUD contract applicant, even though he later told the truth about it. OR Jackson is dishonest because he lied in telling a story (anecdote) as true, and is consequently not to be trusted when he claims he did not violate the law to begin with.