Day: March 14, 2006

The CIA has the worst record of any U.S. government agency for complying with the Freedom of Information Act, an independent archive that publishes declassified U.S. government documents said on Monday.

The National Security Archive at George Washington University named the spy agency as the 2006 recipient of its annual Rosemary Award, which recognizes the poorest performance within the federal government for responses to Freedom of Information Act requests from the public.

By JOHN M. CRISP

During our history’s most prominent presidential dalliance, Monica Lewinski gave Bill Clinton a copy of Nicholson Baker’s "Vox," a fictional erotic phone conversation between two strangers. Baker’s new book, "Checkpoint," is another extended dialogue, this time between two old friends, Ben, a historian, and Jay, who’s so outraged by the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians at a Marine checkpoint that he decides to assassinate President Bush.

Assassination? Let’s not get carried away. Of course, Baker isn’t actually advocating assassination — that’s against the law and, besides, Jay is a fictional character who’s clearly deranged. The First Amendment permits this sort of attention-getting hyperbole in fiction. But Jay’s irrational reaction to the state of affairs in his fictional world is credible only if a reasonable case can be made that things are going very, very wrong in real life.

By LAURIE KELLMAN

Democrats distanced themselves Monday from Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold’s effort to censure President Bush over domestic spying, preventing a floor vote that could alienate swing voters.

A day of tough, election-year talk between Feingold and Vice President Dick Cheney ended with Senate leaders sending the matter to the Judiciary Committee.

Republican despair over the sagging political fortunes and eroding credibility of President George W. Bush is reaching epidemic proportions.
Reports Carolyn Lochhead in the San Francisco Chronicle:

By LISA ZAGAROLI
McClatchy Newspapers

As the third anniversary of the war approaches, the $21 billion the United States has allocated for reconstruction of Iraq has yet to lift the war-torn nation from ruin.

Power outages are the norm; in fact, there’s less electricity available than before the war began. Fewer people have clean water and sanitation systems. And fuel production isn’t at pre-war levels, either.

By BONNIE ERBE

Now it’s official. Many of you have read my detonations during the past year about the fact American women’s cultural progress is in a stall, if not in a freefall. I’ve written that the number of women in Congress has remained relatively stagnant for the past decade. I’ve reported on data that prove the percentage of women occupying seats in state legislatures (the training ground for national politics) is down for the first time this decade after three decades of rising rapidly. I’ve written that women’s progress toward CEO status in major corporations is edging forward at a molasses-like pace and the same is true for women on corporate boards.

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released on Monday put President George W. Bush’s approval rating at 36 percent, a new low for that poll but similar to his rating in other recent surveys.