From Dana Milbank, a short guide to the language of Washington politicians. An excerpt:

It’s time to stop playing politics.
The other party has a winning political issue.

As I said in my Wall Street Journal op-ed last week …
I am so important that I can quote myself.

The Ottawa Citizen runs a weekly column purporting to shed some insight into the lives of senior civil servants and their staff. Problem is, their EX feature is often self-indulgent and takes 700 words to work through a 20 word problem. (Boss doesn’t know how to use computers. Boss doesn’t recognize work of underlings. Boss would be lost without executive assistant)

Which is why Civil Serf, a relatively new blog from an anonymous British civil servant, is so appealing.

Unfortunately, that anonymous civil servant seems to be dealing with frustration, irritation and maybe anger issues. This is a normal state for most civil servants nowadays, but does not bode well for the longevity of the blog.

Civil servants bring an unappreciated skill to blogging: they are well used to writing briefing notes and explanatory material that couch difficult ideas and conflicting opinions in mealy-mouthed words and conditional clauses.

It’s an unusual power usually left underutilized.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration has launched a blog*, but Jake McKee has wondered whether the TSA has picked the right tool for the job:

“… The first round of posts and the hundreds (1308 comments submitted on six entries as I write this) are largely focused on questions from confused travelers. The first entry jumps straight into answering the inevitable travel policy questions. Is the blog the right tool here? I’d argue that a social tool that allows questions to be submitted and voted up by site visitors is a far more interesting idea over a blog..”

Click through for other incisive observations about the blog - and how organizations should program for a blog.

*the blog is called “evolution of security” - which may be something of an overpromise in terms of depth and breadth of topic.