[Steve_Seattle]

"When I read crap like this . . . "

As I was trying to point out in an earlier post, stories like this could be multiplied endlessly at all levels of government and in any large corporation. What is described in here is the ordinary push-and-shove of bureaucracies and hierarchies, where people at the top and in the mid-manage,ment levels want to control the flow of information to spin things a certain way. These things only become "news" when the press wants to make someone look bad, as they do with Bush. And as I said, the headline is false - the "White House" (Bush and his close advisors) was not involved in this. A fly on the wall would see things in major newsrooms, e.g., The Seattle Times, that would look as bad or worse than what's described here.

[Mr. Bird]

Exactly. I do believe the story has news value; it appears that disclosure of the scoring would have definitely hindered passage of the bill. But the suggestion that such activity is exceptional is entirely dishonest, as the writer concedes that the Clinton administration did the same thing.

There's enough objective fact to support the story; the only reason to strike a pose with the information is to score political points.