When Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s utterances are at variance with the truth, we’re usually inclined to excuse him on the grounds that he’s either misinformed or, as he often claims himself, he doesn’t know the facts.

But there was no doubt about his recent utterance regarding the bringing of charges against citizens who walked in the recent Bersih, Hindraf and Human Rights Day rallies: “We do not discriminate, there are no double standards in enforcing the law.”

A statement that was, by anybody’s standards, a barefaced, outright lie.