This is pure speculation from TPM Reader PHB. At a minimum, though, he raises a real oddity in the conversation HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson described in that speech. Maybe more ...

Just read the thinkprogress on the HUD thing. First comment set me thinking.

Why on earth would a contractor bidding for a contract come out and say 'I do not support your President'.

There is only one circumstance I can think of where that reply would come up in a sales call - IF THE CEO WAS ASKED FOR A CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION.

I certainly would never bring up politics with any customer unless I knew what their politics were in advance and that they were compatible.

The politics issue has to have come from Jackson.

That is why he is making this peculiar statement, what he is really doing here is repeating his internalized self-justification for demanding a bribe and being rebuffed.

Isn't this sort of a good point?

Maybe the whole conversation Jackson recounted was a fictive one, meant to communicate a message without being literally true. Speech-making gives some license for that sort of thing, I suppose.

But why would anyone volunteer such a statement unprompted? Hopefully, a government contractor who didn't support President Bush wouldn't reduce him or herself to kow-towing. But if you're a businessman working hard for a government contract, would you bring up your opposition to the president, unprompted, to one of his chief appointees, when the whole topic isn't even appropriate to discuss?

I think PHB may be on to something.

Meanwhile, Sen. Lieberman's joining the calls for an investigation into the HUD Secretary.