The data produced by the US government from nearly all departments is more politicized than ever. If information to be released is not in accord with Right-Wing Republican ideology, it does not get released, or it gets transformed so as not to provide the information sought. For example, realizing how unfair the most recent tax cuts are could not be done with the data produced by the Treasury. It had to be analyzed at length to discover how poorly the poor are to be treated.

Along the same lines, the Bush administration has handled increasing unemployment by decreasing the availability of unemployment statistics. For instance, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stopped producing a monthly report detailing manufacturing and service industry layoffs. Republican party appointees reasoned that since the same statistics could be produced from publicly available information, albeit with much time, money, and effort, the Bureau of Labor...