Science writer Daniel Smith takes nearly 5,200 words to spell-out a reasoned and middle-of-the-road assessment of whether the Bush administration has or has not unduly politicized scientific decisionmaking. But those hoping for an answer to the key question -- is the administration "truly a worse science offender than its predecessors?" -- will likely go away unsatisfied.

It basically comes down to being in the eye of the believer, he writes, saying "the very notion of 'misuse' of science is ideologically freighted" and difficult to quantify. Smith's piece deals with a range of science issues, but centers in particular on the climate change and embryonic stem cell issues. Those having followed these issues closely may find little that is truly new in the report. Smith had extensive access to the President's science advisor, John H. Marburger III, and reports that Marburger generally sees no particular politicization of administration science and that he personally is not ethically conflicted in his position, notwithstanding Smith's report that "To many in the scientific community, it is unfathomable that Marburger would risk his reputation by staying on and continuing to defend the administration."

Smith quotes Marburger as saying, "I still don't think there are any administration policies that are in conflict with science or with the way nature works." He points to a 44 percent increase in overall R&D spending during Bush's first term. (Critics say that much of that increase came from an "extraordinary expansion" for the National Institutes of Health initiated during the Clinton administration and from umbrella military spending increases.)