> From what I've read of his work, Tufte has almost a compulsion to force data to tell the truth

I think it's naive to think that there's just "one truth".

What's the truth about NASA spending during the Apollo program?

It was so-many billion that added up to a glorious step into the cosmos?

It was so-many billion that added up to a race with the Soviets to prove that freedom is better than communism?

It was so-many billion that was a big whose-dick-is-bigger game?

It was so-many billion spent to bid up the wages of well payed first world engineers while third world peasants continued to live in poverty?

These are all true, and there's no way that graphic design can pick the one true truth out of the other truths.

Tufte can do some great work on displaying the multi-trillion dollar buget, but it's not going to get at "the" truth.

Here's the visualization I'd like to see:

FDR's Depression budgets weren't concentrated in areas with the highest poverty, but in areas where his political support was wavering. Obama's "stimulus" is similarly spent in areas of the country, and areas of the economy where buying political support is needed. I'd like to see Tufte do THAT visualization.

I'm sorry to hear that he's going to be on the government payroll - I'd love to have his skills deployed as a non-partisan, non-aligned outsider, as opposed to someone inside the tent looking out.