Martin Schram: Official lies provide dark and stormy finale to Sunshine Week

[maddezmom]

Martin Schram: Official lies provide dark and stormy finale to Sunshine Week
By MARTIN SCHRAM, Scripps Howard News Service

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Washington is a city that lies on the bank of the Potomac River. That is true whether you are looking at it or listening to it.

That was painfully apparent on March 16. It was the last day of Sunshine Week, a reform-minded push for government openness and truth — and the Washington sky was dark and gloomy, first menacing and then delivering.

Soon Washington was awash in rain and sleet and a Bush administration reign of lies — the last of which infuriated congressional Republicans every bit as much as the Democrats.

Washington has never been naive about its lies. It has endured untruths whenever Republicans or Democrats occupied the White House or controlled Congress. But this past week, members of Congress from both parties could not escape the fact that the city’s veracity index has gone from bad to worse and, finally, to flat-out unacceptable, even by the tolerant standards of the city’s own.

Much to their official distaste, members of both parties discovered that President Bush’s White House and administration are on course for retiring the Capital City Cup for official lies on all matters of policy, foreign and domestic.

more:http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2007/mar/22/martin_schram_official_lies_provide_dark_and_storm/?print=1