Group tries to get findings on research heard

Abstract

Washington is a city built on an elusive substance: power. It is a city whose preoccupation is politics, whose realities are shaped by blue smoke, tilting mirrors, unending reports. Most of these reports are generated by executive-branch agencies, arms of Congress, or quasi-independent bodies like the National Academy of Sciences, with umbilical cords to power centers. A few, a very few, are generated by independent organizations wielding no obvious power in Washington. Yet no matter their source, their unstinting goal is to manipulate the smoke and mirrors, influence politics and thereby wield power. Instead of shaping Washington realities, however, reports of independent groups (and even those of federal agencies that have not been requested by Congress or mandated by law) frequently get lost in the smoke, distorted by the mirrors. Why can't an unbiased, independent mechanism carry the message? The experience of the National Commission on Research provides answers. This private group, now disbanded, pro...