The Democrats are criticizing President Bush for politicizing the federal government. Considering how it has turned out for him, they should be urging him to do more of it.

The most recent revelation was that the White House conducted at least half-a-dozen briefings for top diplomats and State Department officials on administration political goals and Democrats targeted for defeat.

Among the information imparted to officials, who presumably should have been busying themselves with American foreign policy, were the 55 most critical House races of 2002 and, given how badly the 2006 elections turned out, the more modest goal of the 36 top Democratic targets of 2008.

While America's top envoys were preoccupied trying to save the Ohio Republican Party from extinction, the Iranians were trying to build a nuclear bomb, Hugo Chavez was trying to run us out of Latin America and Vladimir Putin was having a soul transplant.

Recall that after the fall of Baghdad, the administration turned the reconstruction of Iraq over to fresh-faced young Republican activists who had worked for Bush's election and were opposed to Roe v. Wade. We know how well that turned out.

Something like 15 federal agencies received briefings from White House political operatives. At the General Services Administration, a special investigation found that the agency head, Lurita Doan, violated the Hatch Act for asking GSA's political appointees how they could "help our candidates" win the election.

This stuff always comes back to haunt the administration.

Somehow a 33-year-old graduate of an obscure law school was assigned to begin purging Justice employees who were not "loyal Bushies," including eight U.S. attorneys who unaccountably couldn't turn up cases of voter fraud where none existed even though just the allegations alone would help Republican candidates.

The upshot was to make U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a laughingstock and give the Democrats a club with which even now they are gleefully bashing the administration. The Bush administration tried manfully to politicize science to conform to the often-conflicting beliefs of its most devoted supporters.

Former Bush Surgeon General Richard Carmona said the political appointees prevented him from speaking out on stem cells, sex education and contraception. It could fairly be asked why he didn't speak out at the time, but that was lost in the laughter over his disclosure that he was required to mention Bush three times on every page of his speeches.

And then there was the 23-year-old Bush campaign operative at NASA who was editing the speeches and research of the agency's distinguished scientists to omit references to global warming and to describe the big bang as "alleged." It turned out that the lad was a college dropout, worse yet, from a journalism program.

(Journalists will insist that dinosaurs and mankind coexisted, not because of creationism but because weaving a few Tyrannosaurus rexes into the copy will enliven even the dullest traffic-roundup story.)

If the Bush administration isn't any good at politicizing, the Republican Congress was even worse. GOP strategists launched the "K Street Project" to pack Washington lobbying firms with Republicans.

The upshot: A Republican congressman, a White House aide, a deputy Cabinet secretary, several top GOP congressional staffers and a well-connected Republican lobbyist facing jail terms in an investigation that is still not over.

Instead of politicization, Bush might want to try bipartisanship. At least it would spread the blame.

— Dale McFeatters writes for Scripps Howard News Service.