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We do have a secretary of homeland security , and in his first speech in that role he mentions candor as a very important part of security.

And we will operate from a few basic principles. First, candor. No one should be wary of coming forward when they see a problem. It's the only way to define a solution. The urgency of our task dictates candor about our challenges and confidence in our ability to solve them.

I'd say that the manner in which our reps are elected falls pretty clearly under essential infrastructure. Maybe they can send Ms. Lamone to Gitmo or something.

[..]Bush senior declaring the 1990's to be the decade of the brain

Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace, and America's determination to lead the world in confronting that threat.

The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime's own actions -- its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror.

they are working on legislation to make free software impossible

Won't fly. The web site of the CEO of the United States runs Apache on Linux.

To kill something it has to be living first, silly. I think even my dog gets that. Organisms which cannot survive independently of their host are not called living, they're called "virii." But then again I equate loss of liberty with sociological death (cf. slavery), so I couldn't in good conscience let any pro-life sites in either, since that would visit a metaphorical death on all those women in America who are no longer free to rule over their own body.

Also if they'd only let in anti-war and anti-death penalty sites, that would be nice too. Meaning block pro-war, pro-death penality sites. Like this one.

Great moderating Slashdot....Someone posts a quote that makes Bush look bad and gets modded up. Someone replies with the correct quote and gets modded down.

Don't believe me? Check the link from the original post.

Sheeesh!

"We see a China that is stable and prosperous, a nation that respects the peace of its neighbors and works to secure the freedom of its own people. " President Bush Addresses Australian Parliament Oct. 22,2003

Dear Patriots:

Celebrate the Cheney-Rumsfeld victory over Pronography

Very patriotically yours,
Kilgore Trout

Looking just at Republicans, the average rate for the three key misperceptions was 43%. For Republican Fox viewers, however the average rate was 54% while for Republicans who get their news from PBS- NPR the average rate is 32%. This same pattern obtains with Democrats and independents.

That controls for the effect that the audience of Faux News is more right-wing.

By the way, you're wrong about the factuality of the "Bush never said imminent threat" meme (though of course that doesn't negate your point).

In fact, the National Security Council strategy document released 9/17/02 term "rogue states" (such as Iraq) an "imminent threat." Furthermore Scott McClellan called Iraq an "imminent threat" twice in Feb 2003, though by July he was backtracking. Ari Fleischer labeled Iraq an immediate threat on Jan 21 2003. In some Rose Garden remarks , Bush called Iraq "threat of unique urgency."

I wonder if anyone will venture an opinion as to which is worse, an imminent threat or an immediate threat? And does a "threat of unique urgency" trump them all? Who knows. But I think it's rather silly to try to deny that the Bushies took the threat of Iraq very seriously last fall and worked hard to communicate their concerns to the world.

Here are the excerpts:

Laying the groundwork for intervention in Iraq, the National Security Council released this strategy document: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.html (also found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html) The National Security Strategy of the United States of America dated September 17, 2002

For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack. Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat-most often a visible mobilization of armies, navies, and air forces preparing to attack.

We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries. Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction-weapons that can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning.

As far as I can tell, this document is in the official voice of Bush's Security Council. Thus it speaks officially for the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and numerous others. And it's applying the phrase "imminent threat" to an unnamed adversary that can't be anyone else but Iraq. I think that gives the lie to the meme that Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat. I think it's pretty clear that they all seek to "adapt the concept of imminent threat" to Iraq.

McClellan's use of imminent threat: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20 030210-8.html Excerpts from the Press Gaggle by Scott McClellan, February 10, 2003

QUESTION: What about NATO's role? Belgium now says it will veto any attempt to provide help to Turkey to defend itself. Is this something the administration can live with, or is it a major obstacle?

MR. McCLELLAN: Two points. We support the request under Article IV of Turkey. And I think it's important to

Looking just at Republicans, the average rate for the three key misperceptions was 43%. For Republican Fox viewers, however the average rate was 54% while for Republicans who get their news from PBS- NPR the average rate is 32%. This same pattern obtains with Democrats and independents.

That controls for the effect that the audience of Faux News is more right-wing.

By the way, you're wrong about the factuality of the "Bush never said imminent threat" meme (though of course that doesn't negate your point).

In fact, the National Security Council strategy document released 9/17/02 term "rogue states" (such as Iraq) an "imminent threat." Furthermore Scott McClellan called Iraq an "imminent threat" twice in Feb 2003, though by July he was backtracking. Ari Fleischer labeled Iraq an immediate threat on Jan 21 2003. In some Rose Garden remarks , Bush called Iraq "threat of unique urgency."

I wonder if anyone will venture an opinion as to which is worse, an imminent threat or an immediate threat? And does a "threat of unique urgency" trump them all? Who knows. But I think it's rather silly to try to deny that the Bushies took the threat of Iraq very seriously last fall and worked hard to communicate their concerns to the world.

Here are the excerpts:

Laying the groundwork for intervention in Iraq, the National Security Council released this strategy document: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.html (also found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html) The National Security Strategy of the United States of America dated September 17, 2002

For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack. Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat-most often a visible mobilization of armies, navies, and air forces preparing to attack.

We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries. Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction-weapons that can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning.

As far as I can tell, this document is in the official voice of Bush's Security Council. Thus it speaks officially for the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and numerous others. And it's applying the phrase "imminent threat" to an unnamed adversary that can't be anyone else but Iraq. I think that gives the lie to the meme that Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat. I think it's pretty clear that they all seek to "adapt the concept of imminent threat" to Iraq.

McClellan's use of imminent threat: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20 030210-8.html Excerpts from the Press Gaggle by Scott McClellan, February 10, 2003

QUESTION: What about NATO's role? Belgium now says it will veto any attempt to provide help to Turkey to defend itself. Is this something the administration can live with, or is it a major obstacle?

MR. McCLELLAN: Two points. We support the request under Article IV of Turkey. And I think it's important to

Looking just at Republicans, the average rate for the three key misperceptions was 43%. For Republican Fox viewers, however the average rate was 54% while for Republicans who get their news from PBS- NPR the average rate is 32%. This same pattern obtains with Democrats and independents.

That controls for the effect that the audience of Faux News is more right-wing.

By the way, you're wrong about the factuality of the "Bush never said imminent threat" meme (though of course that doesn't negate your point).

In fact, the National Security Council strategy document released 9/17/02 term "rogue states" (such as Iraq) an "imminent threat." Furthermore Scott McClellan called Iraq an "imminent threat" twice in Feb 2003, though by July he was backtracking. Ari Fleischer labeled Iraq an immediate threat on Jan 21 2003. In some Rose Garden remarks , Bush called Iraq "threat of unique urgency."

I wonder if anyone will venture an opinion as to which is worse, an imminent threat or an immediate threat? And does a "threat of unique urgency" trump them all? Who knows. But I think it's rather silly to try to deny that the Bushies took the threat of Iraq very seriously last fall and worked hard to communicate their concerns to the world.

Here are the excerpts:

Laying the groundwork for intervention in Iraq, the National Security Council released this strategy document: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.html (also found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html) The National Security Strategy of the United States of America dated September 17, 2002

For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack. Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat-most often a visible mobilization of armies, navies, and air forces preparing to attack.

We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries. Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction-weapons that can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning.

As far as I can tell, this document is in the official voice of Bush's Security Council. Thus it speaks officially for the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and numerous others. And it's applying the phrase "imminent threat" to an unnamed adversary that can't be anyone else but Iraq. I think that gives the lie to the meme that Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat. I think it's pretty clear that they all seek to "adapt the concept of imminent threat" to Iraq.

McClellan's use of imminent threat: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20 030210-8.html Excerpts from the Press Gaggle by Scott McClellan, February 10, 2003

QUESTION: What about NATO's role? Belgium now says it will veto any attempt to provide help to Turkey to defend itself. Is this something the administration can live with, or is it a major obstacle?

MR. McCLELLAN: Two points. We support the request under Article IV of Turkey. And I think it's important to

Looking just at Republicans, the average rate for the three key misperceptions was 43%. For Republican Fox viewers, however the average rate was 54% while for Republicans who get their news from PBS- NPR the average rate is 32%. This same pattern obtains with Democrats and independents.

That controls for the effect that the audience of Faux News is more right-wing.

By the way, you're wrong about the factuality of the "Bush never said imminent threat" meme (though of course that doesn't negate your point).

In fact, the National Security Council strategy document released 9/17/02 term "rogue states" (such as Iraq) an "imminent threat." Furthermore Scott McClellan called Iraq an "imminent threat" twice in Feb 2003, though by July he was backtracking. Ari Fleischer labeled Iraq an immediate threat on Jan 21 2003. In some Rose Garden remarks , Bush called Iraq "threat of unique urgency."

I wonder if anyone will venture an opinion as to which is worse, an imminent threat or an immediate threat? And does a "threat of unique urgency" trump them all? Who knows. But I think it's rather silly to try to deny that the Bushies took the threat of Iraq very seriously last fall and worked hard to communicate their concerns to the world.

Here are the excerpts:

Laying the groundwork for intervention in Iraq, the National Security Council released this strategy document: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.html (also found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html) The National Security Strategy of the United States of America dated September 17, 2002

For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack. Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat-most often a visible mobilization of armies, navies, and air forces preparing to attack.

We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries. Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction-weapons that can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning.

As far as I can tell, this document is in the official voice of Bush's Security Council. Thus it speaks officially for the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and numerous others. And it's applying the phrase "imminent threat" to an unnamed adversary that can't be anyone else but Iraq. I think that gives the lie to the meme that Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat. I think it's pretty clear that they all seek to "adapt the concept of imminent threat" to Iraq.

McClellan's use of imminent threat: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20 030210-8.html Excerpts from the Press Gaggle by Scott McClellan, February 10, 2003

QUESTION: What about NATO's role? Belgium now says it will veto any attempt to provide help to Turkey to defend itself. Is this something the administration can live with, or is it a major obstacle?

MR. McCLELLAN: Two points. We support the request under Article IV of Turkey. And I think it's important to

Looking just at Republicans, the average rate for the three key misperceptions was 43%. For Republican Fox viewers, however the average rate was 54% while for Republicans who get their news from PBS- NPR the average rate is 32%. This same pattern obtains with Democrats and independents.

That controls for the effect that the audience of Faux News is more right-wing.

By the way, you're wrong about the factuality of the "Bush never said imminent threat" meme (though of course that doesn't negate your point).

In fact, the National Security Council strategy document released 9/17/02 term "rogue states" (such as Iraq) an "imminent threat." Furthermore Scott McClellan called Iraq an "imminent threat" twice in Feb 2003, though by July he was backtracking. Ari Fleischer labeled Iraq an immediate threat on Jan 21 2003. In some Rose Garden remarks , Bush called Iraq "threat of unique urgency."

I wonder if anyone will venture an opinion as to which is worse, an imminent threat or an immediate threat? And does a "threat of unique urgency" trump them all? Who knows. But I think it's rather silly to try to deny that the Bushies took the threat of Iraq very seriously last fall and worked hard to communicate their concerns to the world.

Here are the excerpts:

Laying the groundwork for intervention in Iraq, the National Security Council released this strategy document: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.html (also found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html) The National Security Strategy of the United States of America dated September 17, 2002

For centuries, international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack. Legal scholars and international jurists often conditioned the legitimacy of preemption on the existence of an imminent threat-most often a visible mobilization of armies, navies, and air forces preparing to attack.

We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today's adversaries. Rogue states and terrorists do not seek to attack us using conventional means. They know such attacks would fail. Instead, they rely on acts of terror and, potentially, the use of weapons of mass destruction-weapons that can be easily concealed, delivered covertly, and used without warning.

As far as I can tell, this document is in the official voice of Bush's Security Council. Thus it speaks officially for the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and numerous others. And it's applying the phrase "imminent threat" to an unnamed adversary that can't be anyone else but Iraq. I think that gives the lie to the meme that Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat. I think it's pretty clear that they all seek to "adapt the concept of imminent threat" to Iraq.

McClellan's use of imminent threat: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20 030210-8.html Excerpts from the Press Gaggle by Scott McClellan, February 10, 2003

QUESTION: What about NATO's role? Belgium now says it will veto any attempt to provide help to Turkey to defend itself. Is this something the administration can live with, or is it a major obstacle?

MR. McCLELLAN: Two points. We support the request under Article IV of Turkey. And I think it's important to

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.

The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.

The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.

Stop being such a tool.

• Apple's hardware is some of the most proprietary locked down machinery in existance.
• Microsoft develops software that people are actually willing to put down hard-earned cash to buy. Now, compare that to the Linux people.
• The average Linux enthusiast's main concern is that the software they use is free of cost. When's the last time any of you Linux people actually bought a distribution and not copied it from someone else?
• The RIAA produces music that people love enough to *cough* steal. Yes I know it's not really stealing because the RIAA still has a copy of the music and nothing was taken away from them and you wouldn't have paid for the music anyways. Yeah, whatever cheapskate! Americans have so much disposable income I find it hard to believe that you couldn't spare a Benjamin for the hours you will spend listening to music. Now, we may not all like Britney Spears but there are hundreds of other artists to choose from. Somebody must like to listen to at least some of it, otherwise Kazaa would be dead. The RIAA is right in sending lawsuits out to people who are caught distributing their music. And no, you aren't fighting for the little guy when you steal RIAA's stuff, you are expanding the profitability of the broadband industry and reducing the profitability of selling music. Because the broadband industry's growth thrives on filesharing, the industry must ensure that there are more files to share to keep growing. Thus, megacorporations develop such that the broadband industry subsidizes music production in order to continue the profitabil

Are you sure you don't mean America? They sound almost exactly the same.

Thanks again for the specific quote from Bush. He does not state that the threat is not imminent. He merely argues that there's no way to see it coming. His words stand on their own, regardless of how many examples you cite of conservatives twisting them into a statement of non-imminence.

Tell me if you think "imminent" misconstrues Bush's statement in his Oct 7, 2002 speech:

While there are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone -- because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant who has already used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people.

See? He said Iraq had actual WMDs at that time and that it was a threat. That's not imminent? No? Just urgent? Oh, OK. I sure wish the newspapers that first covered this speech had been trying to fill a smaller amount of headline space. Then they would have used Bush's own word, "urgent", which has the same implications as "imminent."

CNN didn't paraphrase anything; he did actually say that in the speech he gave.

Bush stated that Iraq was NOT an imminent threat, so I'm not sure what your point is. Let those WMD programs continue because there's no "imminent threat"? That it was OK because they were just going to use more of it on their own people, which they'd already done in the past?

Using that logic, the terrorists that slammed into the towers were just flying around, and weren't an imminent threat until they made their final course corrections.

And back to you....

I did look again.

The headlines still differ, with
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html missing the word "Major" in the title, metadata and the headline, which are precisely what the search engines are most interested in.

The president's speech, however, is exactly the same on both pages, so, maybe "technically" they are the same.

Things that become inconvenient or embarrassing after the fact are hard to hide. At the time this quote by Dick seemed reasonable: link

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

Disallow: /news/releases/2002/07/text
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/08/images/iraq
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/08/images/print/text
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/08/images/text
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/08/print/iraq
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/08/print/text
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/08/text
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/09/images/iraq

At the moment Google still finds to the page you linked to. While I despise those plutocrats as much as the next guy, be very careful before accusing them of something just because they have a history of being vile. As critics of Bush we must be thorough, reasonable, and sceptical.

Things that become inconvenient or embarrassing after the fact are hard to hide. At the time this quote by Dick seemed reasonable: link

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

Disallow: /news/releases/2002/07/text
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/08/images/iraq
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/08/images/print/text
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/08/images/text
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/08/print/iraq
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/08/print/text
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/08/text
Disallow: /news/releases/2002/09/images/iraq

At the moment Google still finds to the page you linked to. While I despise those plutocrats as much as the next guy, be very careful before accusing them of something just because they have a history of being vile. As critics of Bush we must be thorough, reasonable, and sceptical.

president/winterwonderland

The link to the president's letter is also in an earlier post.

if I come to slashdot and cause the white house website to crash by posting a link here http://www.whitehouse.gov

How many uncommunicative incompetents does it take to run an administration into the ground?

With your theory, them web folks did a bad job -- On the pages released by the office of the Press Secretary May 1, 2003 they failed to change both of the pages. Of course the embarassing one of them is hidden from the polite search engines through the very robots.txt file we are all talking about.

See for yourself:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html versus http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/ir aq/20030501-15.html and robots.txt has /news/releases/2003/05/text/ in it.

Compare the headlines.

So tell me, how many mistakes were made, and by who? Do the bucks stop everywhere they get a chance in this administration?

How many uncommunicative incompetents does it take to run an administration into the ground?

With your theory, them web folks did a bad job -- On the pages released by the office of the Press Secretary May 1, 2003 they failed to change both of the pages. Of course the embarassing one of them is hidden from the polite search engines through the very robots.txt file we are all talking about.

See for yourself:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html versus http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/ir aq/20030501-15.html and robots.txt has /news/releases/2003/05/text/ in it.

Compare the headlines.

So tell me, how many mistakes were made, and by who? Do the bucks stop everywhere they get a chance in this administration?

How many uncommunicative incompetents does it take to run an administration into the ground?

With your theory, them web folks did a bad job -- On the pages released by the office of the Press Secretary May 1, 2003 they failed to change both of the pages. Of course the embarassing one of them is hidden from the polite search engines through the very robots.txt file we are all talking about.

See for yourself:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html versus http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/ir aq/20030501-15.html and robots.txt has /news/releases/2003/05/text/ in it.

Compare the headlines.

So tell me, how many mistakes were made, and by who? Do the bucks stop everywhere they get a chance in this administration?

Finally the sordid truth of secret service work is revealed.

Uhm... There ISN'T a disallow on /iraq at all. None. Zip. Check the robots.txt file yourself.

They have nothing to hide/distort, right?

How would I know? Perhaps they do. But if they have something to hide they are NOT going to hide it with robots.txt. That's just silly.

Pardon me, but some of them do lead to interesting things. /news/releases/2003/05/iraq/ exists, and even contains different data than
news/releases/2003/05/text/ or news/releases/2003/05/

See for yourself:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html versus http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/ir aq/20030501-15.html and http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt has /news/releases/2003/05/iraq/ in it.

Compare the headlines.

Pardon me, but some of them do lead to interesting things. /news/releases/2003/05/iraq/ exists, and even contains different data than
news/releases/2003/05/text/ or news/releases/2003/05/

See for yourself:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html versus http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/ir aq/20030501-15.html and http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt has /news/releases/2003/05/iraq/ in it.

Compare the headlines.

Pardon me, but some of them do lead to interesting things. /news/releases/2003/05/iraq/ exists, and even contains different data than
news/releases/2003/05/text/ or news/releases/2003/05/

See for yourself:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html versus http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/ir aq/20030501-15.html and http://www.whitehouse.gov/robots.txt has /news/releases/2003/05/iraq/ in it.

Compare the headlines.

See:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html

which differs from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/ir aq/20030501-15.html

In the text version, the pages says 'President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended' while in the robot accessible version, it is ''President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended'.

Get your own screenshots.

See:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html

which differs from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/ir aq/20030501-15.html

In the text version, the pages says 'President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended' while in the robot accessible version, it is ''President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended'.

Get your own screenshots.

See:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html

which differs from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/ir aq/20030501-15.html

In the text version, the pages says 'President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended' while in the robot accessible version, it is ''President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended'.

Get your own screenshots.

See:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html

which differs from
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/ir aq/20030501-15.html

In the text version, the pages says 'President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended' while in the robot accessible version, it is ''President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended'.

Get your own screenshots.

So most are 404s, some are videos, and you assume others have mundane reasons. What about the ones with real content? Like
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html

which differs from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/ir aq/20030501-15.html

In the text version, the pages says 'President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended' while in the robot accessible version, it is ''President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended'.

There are perfectly good error codes for Gone (410), moved temporarily (302), moved permanently (301), and a host of other codes for more mundane reasons.

The question that the tin-foil-hat crowd wants answered is where does the content go that doesn't exist anymore? Did they ship it over to Ashcroft's boys and delete it off the server? Or move it off under /kids/eggroll/barney/iraq/DoNtInDeX/oldspeak/nosex withthatwoman.txt "Technically", it is still on the publically addressable web page, anyone could look at it, if they knew the obfuscated secret.

Making the robots.txt file 'accidently' inhibit robots makes the data more inconvenient to access, not impossible. So "Technically", it is still accessible, but instead of using google, you'd have to use the white house search tool instead.

If you trusted them before, you will probably keep trusting them. If you were suspicious, this is another 'mistakes were made' brick in the wall to wonder about.

As for me, the one-word difference in the two headlines above makes me suspicious.

So most are 404s, some are videos, and you assume others have mundane reasons. What about the ones with real content? Like
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/te xt/20030501-15.html

which differs from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/ir aq/20030501-15.html

In the text version, the pages says 'President Bush Announces Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended' while in the robot accessible version, it is ''President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended'.

There are perfectly good error codes for Gone (410), moved temporarily (302), moved permanently (301), and a host of other codes for more mundane reasons.

The question that the tin-foil-hat crowd wants answered is where does the content go that doesn't exist anymore? Did they ship it over to Ashcroft's boys and delete it off the server? Or move it off under /kids/eggroll/barney/iraq/DoNtInDeX/oldspeak/nosex withthatwoman.txt "Technically", it is still on the publically addressable web page, anyone could look at it, if they knew the obfuscated secret.

Making the robots.txt file 'accidently' inhibit robots makes the data more inconvenient to access, not impossible. So "Technically", it is still accessible, but instead of using google, you'd have to use the white house search tool instead.

If you trusted them before, you will probably keep trusting them. If you were suspicious, this is another 'mistakes were made' brick in the wall to wonder about.

As for me, the one-word difference in the two headlines above makes me suspicious.

No, it's just the kind of subtle manipulation this administration has perfected. They probably realized that if they pulled all kinds of documents from the web site that it'd appear as if they were limiting access to the public record.

It's all still there for all to see, but it's not as easy to find. So they can say "We're not hiding anything." while they actually hide it.

Things that become inconvenient or embarrassing after the fact are hard to hide. At the time this quote by Dick seemed reasonable: link

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

Now maybe less so. Also, re: the Uranium production in Africa, Fleisher sounds like a complete fool.
This is the first example of the Bush administration confronting the forged Iraq/African Uranium document. This is from March, 14th 2002.

On March 17th 2002 Bush gives Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq and on the 19th he launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom".

So for at least a week -before- the shooting started the Bush administration had reporters at press conferences asking questions about the forged uranium documents. The mainstream press didn't pick up on this story until July.

Link

Q Ari, the President said in his State of the Union address, the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. And since then, the IAEA said that those were forged documents --

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm sorry, whose statement was that?

Q The President, in his State of the Union address. Since then, the IAEA has said those were forged documents. Was the administration aware of any doubts about these documents, the authenticity of the documents, from any government agency or department before it was submitted to the IAEA?

MR. FLEISCHER: These are matters that are always reviewed with an eye toward the various information that comes in and is analyzed by a variety of different people. The President's concerns about Iraq stem from multiple places, involving multiple threats that Iraq can possess, and these are matters that remain discussed.

Fleischer stalls for time by pretending that he didn't understand the source of the quote (as if "President" and "State of the Union" in the first sentence were unclear), then comes up with a moronic bit of doublespeak. No wonder he quit. Read his last sentence in that press conference aloud. That's sentence is the official line one week before the war. Lots of confidence there.

If the whitehouse can make it a little more difficult for reporters or their opponents to dig up embarrassing quotes or timelines you can bet your last dollar they will. -dameron

No, it's just the kind of subtle manipulation this administration has perfected. They probably realized that if they pulled all kinds of documents from the web site that it'd appear as if they were limiting access to the public record.

It's all still there for all to see, but it's not as easy to find. So they can say "We're not hiding anything." while they actually hide it.

Things that become inconvenient or embarrassing after the fact are hard to hide. At the time this quote by Dick seemed reasonable: link

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

Now maybe less so. Also, re: the Uranium production in Africa, Fleisher sounds like a complete fool.
This is the first example of the Bush administration confronting the forged Iraq/African Uranium document. This is from March, 14th 2002.

On March 17th 2002 Bush gives Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq and on the 19th he launched "Operation Iraqi Freedom".

So for at least a week -before- the shooting started the Bush administration had reporters at press conferences asking questions about the forged uranium documents. The mainstream press didn't pick up on this story until July.

Link

Q Ari, the President said in his State of the Union address, the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. And since then, the IAEA said that those were forged documents --

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm sorry, whose statement was that?

Q The President, in his State of the Union address. Since then, the IAEA has said those were forged documents. Was the administration aware of any doubts about these documents, the authenticity of the documents, from any government agency or department before it was submitted to the IAEA?

MR. FLEISCHER: These are matters that are always reviewed with an eye toward the various information that comes in and is analyzed by a variety of different people. The President's concerns about Iraq stem from multiple places, involving multiple threats that Iraq can possess, and these are matters that remain discussed.

Fleischer stalls for time by pretending that he didn't understand the source of the quote (as if "President" and "State of the Union" in the first sentence were unclear), then comes up with a moronic bit of doublespeak. No wonder he quit. Read his last sentence in that press conference aloud. That's sentence is the official line one week before the war. Lots of confidence there.

If the whitehouse can make it a little more difficult for reporters or their opponents to dig up embarrassing quotes or timelines you can bet your last dollar they will. -dameron

Other posters have claimed it's more than one. I haven't checked, so I don't know. However, even if it is just infocus/iraq, that's still a hell of a lot.

That subdirectory seems to contain all or most of the transcripts of Ari Fleischer's and Bush's interviews and press conferences leading up to the war and after. An example is this:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/excerpts_se pt26.html

Please look at the robots.txt file. Do it right now.

Now... look at all those links. Does it look like a deliberate act to remove Iraq from search engines--something which would be useless to do anyway since the information is in many other places anyway--or does it look like somebody's script got away from them?

That dog don't hunt. In fact, the dog is dead.

They didn't remove them; the files are still online. They just won't be linked from Google.

But you are right about the fact that some of the files contain allegations about Iraq / al Qaeda links that the administration has now backed away from. An example of such a document is this one:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/excerpts_se pt26.html

In particular, the infocus/iraq subdirectory seems to contain all the transcripts of Ari Fleischer's and Bush's interviews and press conferences leading up to the war and after.

Here's the earliest mention of the forged documents story re: Iraq's phantom African uranium connection, from March 14, 2003. It's notable that this "story" didn't really break until much later in the summer. More from the obscured documents:

Q Ari, the President said in his State of the Union address, the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. And since then, the IAEA said that those were forged documents --

MR. FLEISCHER: I'm sorry, whose statement was that?

Q The President, in his State of the Union address. Since then, the IAEA has said those were forged documents. Was the administration aware of any doubts about these documents, the authenticity of the documents, from any government agency or department before it was submitted to the IAEA?

MR. FLEISCHER: These are matters that are always reviewed with an eye toward the various information that comes in and is analyzed by a variety of different people. The President's concerns about Iraq stem from multiple places, involving multiple threats that Iraq can possess, and these are matters that remain discussed.

That's just too funny. He has no idea what to say to that question and his attempts to obfuscate are painful to read... Just read Fleischer's last sentence aloud to yourself. And, of course, the press conference ended immediately after this question.

In any case, I wonder how much of whitehouse.gov is actually disallowed?

Arghh... How can you people be so dumb? Why don't you actually look at the website and figure some of this stuff out? The URLs ending in "/text" are text versions of pages. They prefer search engines to dump people to the graphical versions. Here, I'll spell it out:

Graphical version (not found in robots.txt): http://www.whitehouse.gov/firstlady/recipes/

Text version (found in robots.txt): http://www.whitehouse.gov/firstlady/recipes/text

Nonexistent version (found in robots.txt): http://www.whitehouse.gov/firstlady/recipes/iraq

The "iraq" entries were probably added by mistake. Most likely a junior webmaster didn't understand the script that is (apparently) used to generate robots.txt for whitehouse.gov.

The only not-completely-ridiculous conspiracy theory that I can think of which is that someone wanted to discourage archiving of some pages, and decided to hide the fact by making it look like a script had screwed up. But I personally don't find that explanation plausible. Why not use meta tags? Most spiders simply do not respect robots.txt in this form. Pages like whitehouse.gov/iraq are still in google's cache anyway.

So personally I'm 100% convinced that this is a simple screwup. And even if it's not a screwup, most of the accusations made by the paranoids around here make about as much sense as a Wookie deciding to live on Endor.

In any case, I wonder how much of whitehouse.gov is actually disallowed?

Arghh... How can you people be so dumb? Why don't you actually look at the website and figure some of this stuff out? The URLs ending in "/text" are text versions of pages. They prefer search engines to dump people to the graphical versions. Here, I'll spell it out:

Graphical version (not found in robots.txt): http://www.whitehouse.gov/firstlady/recipes/

Text version (found in robots.txt): http://www.whitehouse.gov/firstlady/recipes/text

Nonexistent version (found in robots.txt): http://www.whitehouse.gov/firstlady/recipes/iraq

The "iraq" entries were probably added by mistake. Most likely a junior webmaster didn't understand the script that is (apparently) used to generate robots.txt for whitehouse.gov.

The only not-completely-ridiculous conspiracy theory that I can think of which is that someone wanted to discourage archiving of some pages, and decided to hide the fact by making it look like a script had screwed up. But I personally don't find that explanation plausible. Why not use meta tags? Most spiders simply do not respect robots.txt in this form. Pages like whitehouse.gov/iraq are still in google's cache anyway.

So personally I'm 100% convinced that this is a simple screwup. And even if it's not a screwup, most of the accusations made by the paranoids around here make about as much sense as a Wookie deciding to live on Endor.

In any case, I wonder how much of whitehouse.gov is actually disallowed?

Arghh... How can you people be so dumb? Why don't you actually look at the website and figure some of this stuff out? The URLs ending in "/text" are text versions of pages. They prefer search engines to dump people to the graphical versions. Here, I'll spell it out:

Graphical version (not found in robots.txt): http://www.whitehouse.gov/firstlady/recipes/

Text version (found in robots.txt): http://www.whitehouse.gov/firstlady/recipes/text

Nonexistent version (found in robots.txt): http://www.whitehouse.gov/firstlady/recipes/iraq

The "iraq" entries were probably added by mistake. Most likely a junior webmaster didn't understand the script that is (apparently) used to generate robots.txt for whitehouse.gov.

The only not-completely-ridiculous conspiracy theory that I can think of which is that someone wanted to discourage archiving of some pages, and decided to hide the fact by making it look like a script had screwed up. But I personally don't find that explanation plausible. Why not use meta tags? Most spiders simply do not respect robots.txt in this form. Pages like whitehouse.gov/iraq are still in google's cache anyway.

So personally I'm 100% convinced that this is a simple screwup. And even if it's not a screwup, most of the accusations made by the paranoids around here make about as much sense as a Wookie deciding to live on Endor.

It's true that you can't load the directories, but it's not true that they don't exist. Of course you can't load the directories, because they have directory listing turned off.

However, one of the entries is "Disallow: /infocus/iraq" and the first line in a search of Iraq on whitehouse.gov is /infocus/iraq/websites.html, which is clearly in the directory /infocus/iraq.

=Brian

You know, I was thinking there was probably some innocent technical explanation for this. But RTFR.TXT.

I can't think of any honest reason to do that.