If the premise is unspoken, it's not to be found in the paper under examination. For all anyone else can tell, it's just a figment of your imagination. Where's the scientific objectivity about politics in that?

Hypothesizing that the responses are self-selected is no more solid and concrete. Fear of reprisal is just as plausible an explanation--if 100% of an agency's climate scientists responded, all run the risk of being punished, regardless of response, since responding to the survey would be interpreted by the political overseers as disloyalty. They'd be talking to a whistleblower organization, and that can't sit well with the political censors. The results in the survey might well be underreported.

Calling the survey a "political weapon" sounds bad, until you consider the reality that any report on any topic of public interest could become a political issue. A study uncovering fraud and waste could just as legitimately be called a "political weapon" when a reformer publicizes it, and in no way would that be a bad thing. I take improper political pressure on scientists just as seriously as fraud and waste, because it's a subset of that kind of corruption. We the taxpayers are being defrauded and our money wasted when scientists are not free to do their best work for us.

And really, Tom, who but a Winger extremist is impressed by the argument that "well, Clinton did it too!". Maybe some of this went on back then, but obviously it was not nearly so blatant, or we'd have seen the same frequent and consistent complaints about it back then. But even so, if it was happening then, it hardly excuses it now. I'm surprised that the Yeti hasn't razzed you yet with his trademark "Waaaah! It's not my fault, mommy, Billy Clinton made me do it!". That's how impressive I find that line of argument.

Science and politics don't mix, true. But since the government is commissioning scientific research, we can't just cynically shrug it off. We have to address the problem and get the least-politicized science we can.