Molly Ivins -- Lies, Damn Lies, and the Pentagon

When the "Office of Strategic Lies" was killed off earlier this year, Rumsfeld was quite testy at the press conference. "The office is done," he snapped. "It's over. What do you want, blood?" No, we want it to be over.

President Bush promised at the time, "We'll tell the American people the truth." Then last week, the administration leaked a painfully obvious fake story about how Saddam Hussein had given chemical weapons to Al Qaeda. That one was shot down so fast -- from inside the government -- if you blinked, you missed it.

This administration has such a problem with obsessive secrecy, such a compulsion to control information and such a low regard for the public's right to know what is being done in their name, with their money and with their children's lives that it's seriously alarming. The administration is clearly stocked with people who regard the press as a pain to be manipulated and public opinion as something that needs to be shaped by the government.

To review the record:

- One of the first things Bush did in office was rescind the provision that gives access to a president's records 12 years after he had left office.

- They're still sitting on the information about who shaped Dick Cheney's energy policy, as though we couldn't figure that out.

- Secret detentions without charges, without lawyers.

- The administration requested that the television networks censor tapes from Osama bin Laden under the odd pretext that they might contain some coded message. Since you could see them in full on Al Jazeera, that was utterly pointless.

- In October, after a leak the White House didn't like, the administration announced only eight members of Congress would be permitted to hear intelligence briefings. Congress made them back down.