More evidence that the Bush Administration is, to put it generously, soft on poverty: Few Washington insiders noticed, but a switch of some import was made quietly last year. The Census Bureau chose to release its annual U.S. poverty figures not on the traditional Tuesday downtown at the National Press Club, but rather on a Friday afternoon at Census headquarters in Suitland, Md. -- a place far from most newsrooms, and at a time when most sensible people are focused on matters other than demography. Reporters noticed the 3.4 percent increase in the poverty rate, though, and Congressional Democrats used it to back up their contention that the Bush administration's economic policies had failed. Still, Democrats suspected the administration had been trying to hide something. So when the Census Bureau announced further alterations in the way it presents its annual report on poverty, Democrats immediately suspected a plot. "I don't put anything past this administration," said Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), the ranking member on the Government Relations subcommittee on technology, information policy, intergovernmental relations and the Census. "These people will stoop to any level to accomplish their goals -- and right now that goal is to re-elect Bush." The bureau's plan moved this year's release date from late September to late August -- a time when Members of Congress are normally home in their districts and many journalists are on vacation. Then last week, Census officials announced yet another change: For what appears to be the first time, the figures will be released not by a career official but by the bureau's director, a political appointee.