Sluggeaux: instead of giving an honest opinion next time, relate what happened the last time you offered an honest opinion. Call !$%*!$%* "!$%*!$%*" and out the lying SOB PHB's.
We have a VP who only asks for our opinion when our raging sycophant co-worker is present. This ensures the VP gets an "honest" opinion of his spectacular leadership. The rest of us just throw up in our mouths a little bit.
Business 101: When the Management asks for an honest opinion... the DON'T MEAN IT!!!
I learned this lesson years ago the hard way. During a meeting with senior management, where the VP of ops was asking if "anyone here doesn't buy into our company vision that we can achieve an incident free environment, everywhere, all the time." He stated that he wanted our honest opinion... Well, I raised my hand, and pointed out that being in a company whose primary product is a highly industrial environment, with over 8,000 employees, that the company's vision is a statistical virtual impossibility. After being called aside after the meeting by my managers, and a long sitdown with the VP and being lectured to on why my stance was unsafe, and that I wasn't being a team player, and almost getting fired over it, I decided that a solicited honest opinion by management is never genuine.