This from Rollcall.com, Interior Department officials delayed, and in some cases obstructed, access to nonexempt public records in that federal agency's custody that were requested under the Freedom of Information Act through a formalized process of "political screening."

FOIA is the federal counterpart to Kentucky's Open Records Act. It governs access to public records in the custody of federal (as opposed to state/local agencies), but the terms are often used interchangeably.

Although there is little doubt that Kentucky's elected and appointed officials have exercised influence in determining whether records of state and local public agencies should be withheld — regardless of the requirements of the law — the obstructive forces in Kentucky are more often the public agency's legal teams.

They often believe that they best serve the "client" — in their eyes, the agency and not the public — by withholding unprotected public records and hedging their bets that their actions will not be legally challenged.

But we shouldn't delude ourselves that "political screening" is a problem unique to Washington.

The quotation attributed to Henry Kissinger is priceless: "Don't put it in writing if you don't want it to be FOIA'd." And this was before officials started emailing/texting/etc. in lieu of picking up the telephone!