Inside the Beltway

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Image is everything

Average amount the Bush administration has spent per year on contracts with public-relations firms: $62.5 million

Average amount spent during the entire second term of the Clinton administration: $32 million

--Harper's Index, May 2005

Wishing for error

"The following quotation was attributed to you in a recent report," Rep. Christopher Cox, California Republican, writes in a most unusual letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, delivered in recent days to the Russian Embassy in Washington.

The quote attributed to Mr. Putin: "First and foremost, it is worth acknowledging that the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century."

"As much as we treasure our free press in the United States," Mr. Cox reminds the Russian president, "we understand that reporters, just like the rest of us, sometimes make mistakes. It is my fervent hope that you have been misquoted."

The congressman instead suggested to Mr. Putin that the greatest catastrophe of the last century in Russia "was the Soviet Union itself."