I hate it when people waste FOIA privilege on inconsequential minutiae like profiles of foreign leaders. Oh wow, what does the US think of Putin? What does Batman really think about Superman? What does it matter?
FTFY
Firstly the reference to Putin points to a different article, whose focus was not on getting hold of "inconsequential minutiae" but on how much money the Pentagon is spending on this "inconsequential minutiae". If it is indeed "inconsequential minutiae" then that is absolutely in the public interest.
Also, if these reports really were inconsequential minutiae, then presumably the effort expended for the Pentagon to hand it over would be maybe half an hour for a low level clerk to look up the (unclassified) report, confirm it can be released, and pass it on.
(And if the Pentagon spent money on reports on what Batman really think about Superman, you don't think it would be in the public interest to know how wasteful they are?)
But the issue raised in the article actually linked to here is the much more serious issue that in a lot of cases these government departments do whatever they can to avoid release of documents they are often legally bound to, and/or try to extract concessions out of the people filing the requests that they have no right to, and in the process severely reduce the kind of transparency the FOIA was brought in to provide.
But yes, let's all go back to watching the Lifetime Channel and not think about government details unless it is really sexy sounding and can fit in an Upworthy headline.