According to MSNBC, 70 percent of voters (including 68 percent of white voters) thought Hillary Clinton was unfairly attacking Barack Obama. 56 percent of voters thought Barack Obama was unfairly attacking Hillary Clinton. 50 percent thought both were being unfair. Those results reflect about what I’d say . . . there was unfairness on both sides, but also a definite asymmetry — most of it is coming from the Clinton camp.

The Clinton surrogate, Kiki McLean, on air now is saying “I think campaigns are tough” by way of response. That’s true, but also non-responsive in what I think is a telling way.

ABC News’ exit polls say “definitely more than 50 percent of voters in South Carolina are black.”

“The White House told Democratic congressional leaders” today that President Bush would veto “a 30-day extension of an expiring eavesdropping law and instead wants an expanded version to be passed by Friday.” In a statement, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-CA) called Bush’s posturing “shamefully irresponsible,” adding that “if there is any problem, the blame will clearly and unequivocally fall” on President Bush:

The White House threat to veto a short extension of the Protect America Act is shamefully irresponsible. The President is simply posturing in advance of Monday’s State of the Union address. [...]

The House has already passed a FISA bill, and the Senate was ready to pass its own bill until Republicans blocked all amendments. At the same time, Democrats are ready to extend current law for as long as necessary, but Republicans are blocking that extension and the White House is threatening a veto.

Full statement: Read more

I’m not sure I understand the state of the expectations game at this point. Obama’s going to win, but even if he does win it doesn’t count because there are too many black people in SC? Is that right? But John Edwards is surging and there’s some chance of Clinton falling into third? But as we learned in Iowa, doing well in primaries doesn’t count if it’s John Edwards doing the doing? Something like that? Oh well. It’ll be on to February 5 either way.

In August, the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government reported that “current government handling of FOIA requests is deteriorating” and that the Justice Department was “consistently granted the lowest percentage of [FOIA] appeals of any agency.”

On New Years Eve, facing “congressional pushback against the Bush administration’s movement to greater secrecy,” President Bush signed the OPEN Government Act, toughening the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The legislation — unanimously passed by the House and Senate — would push agencies to respond more quickly to records requests.

But now, the White House is doing everything it can to neuter the law. Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) said yesterday that Bush’s FY2009 “funds for the Office of Government Information Services authorized under the newly enacted OPEN Government Act will be shifted to the Department of Justice” from the National Archives. Congress Daily reports:

“But by shifting the funding to the Justice Department, OMB would effectively eliminate the office, because it appears no similar operation would be created there,” according to an aide to Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT). [...]

National Archives officials are relatively independent of political pressure, the staffer explained, “but DOJ is different.” Government transparency advocates consider the department hostile to efforts to improve FOIA responsiveness, in part because it represents agencies sued by FOIA requesters.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), a cosponsor of the OPEN Government legislation said he “does agree with Senator Leahy and would oppose that effort” of the adminstration.

The Justice Department’s efforts to protect government secrecy are notorious. In fact, in the 109th Congress, the Department “squelched efforts to pass the OPEN Government Act.” But even initially “putting it [funding] in DOJ would essentially obviate what Leahy and Cornyn did with the legislation,” said Patrice McDermott of OpenTheGovernment.org

Bush’s noncompliance with the legislation makes clear his effort to return to his old ways of egregious government secrecy.