Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Kathleen Sebelius as HHS secretary already is implicated in Politifact’s “political lie of the year.” Marc Thiessen, the former Bush speechwriter who now writes a column for the Washington Post explains: The agency Burwell heads, the Office of Management and Budget, is responsible for the president’s budget. But OMB also has another, lesser-known responsibility: fact-checking presidential speeches. Every proposed presidential utterance is scrubbed for accuracy by OMB. When speechwriters finish a draft presidential address, it is circulated to the White House senior staff and top cabinet officials in what is known as the “staffing process.” As part of that process, nonpartisan career policy experts at OMB review the speech and are responsible for attesting to the factual accuracy of everything the president says. So thanks to Burwell’s nomination, Americans may finally get to the bottom of how...(Read Full Post)