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Thousands of White House E-mails Deleted
kidcharles writes "The Washington Post reports that in the midst of an investigation by the U.S. Congress into the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys by the Department of Justice, numerous White House e-mails have been lost. Among them are communications from presidential adviser Karl Rove. Parallels are being drawn with the infamous '18 minutes' missing from the Nixon Watergate tapes. Also at issue is the use of Republican National Committee e-mail domains (such as gwb43.com and georgewbush.com) rather than the official White House domain. This is a violation of the Presidential Records Act."
I seriously doubt the server people in charge of email for the White House would not be keeping both full and incremental backups in addition to major redundancy. After all, they'd want to CYA for actions they did take more than actions they didn't take. Of course, this IS the government, so anything can happen!
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
It's a traditional thing, much like the 18.5 minute gap in Nixon's tapes or the shredding of Enron documents:
n _scandal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_tapes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Enro
I'll be surprised if they are deleted beyond the recall of reasonably simple forensic techniques.
If they do manage to hide those emails, that'll be a first for The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight.
Their consistent MO has been to spout brazen nonsense, then rely on the sheer effrontery to keep the truth hidden until it is covered in a pile of bullshit so deep it will never be brought to light. And the damned thing is that it worked -- a least for a while. Seriously, who has time to think about the truth behind the Iraq WMD lie? It's buried in a strata of crap so deep you'd need a team of archaeologists to find it.
I think the reason this works is that regular people, the people who vote, have no way to know directly whether something is true or not. That's the power vacuum in which money is supreme. Then these guys blew it by telling two big lies that the public could see for itself were lies: that the Iraq war is succeeding and that they cared what happened to the victims of Katrina. Katrina was the watershed event. Before you could get away with lying if you were glib enough. Afterward it was much more dangerious.
But they're still doing it.
Take the US attorney firing. I'm not a lawyer, but even I know enough never to tell an easily refuted lie when you can get by with a uselessly vague truth. I'd have been saying things like "It was time for new blood." or "David Iglesias did a fine job, but a shakeup will keep everybody on their toes, and Larry Gomez deserves his chance to show us what he can do."
Instead they concocted a pile of utter horseshit that is easy to disprove and which by the way impugns the reputation and service of a group of people who happen to be -- wait for it -- high power lawyers. Don't they even watch TV? The way prosecutors get you is they let you talk and talk until you've buried yourself in your own crap and you'll do anything they ask if they'll just please, please throw you a rope? It's a wonder these guys can make it from the shower to the breakfast table in the morning without being indicted.
It's never been a surprise these guys are liars. I knew they were liars before they even came in -- and I don't say that lightly. I don't think people are evil because they disagree with me. I don't see eye to eye with Bob Dole, but he would have been a strong and honorable president. But this guy was obviously a pathetic liar from the start. They didn't exactly try to hide the fact they ran a whisper campaign against John McCain in South Carolina. Anybody with even a whisp of decency would had the person responsible fired in disgrace. It's a disgrace to the Republican party they didn't kick W out right then and there.
It goes to show you there are worse things than losing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
True, but in a democracy there's an even better and more readily available method of control. Voting. And I don't think you can argue that Bush & Co. aren't doing things vastly differently than they were before the '04 elections.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
He got away with the remark. The reason he was fired was the long history of prior remarks that was unearthed once the story broke. What really finished him off was the series of attacks on Gwen Eifel.
Same thing happened with Trent Lott and George Allen. They mouthed off crypto-racist comments for years. Once the story broke it became obvious that it wasn't just a one-off mis-speaking, it was a pattern.
The only slight element of injustice is that Imus is nowhere near the worst offender out there. Ann Coulter's schtick is way more offensive but she still gets away with it. Matt Druge regularly gets caught 'making shit up' like his non-existent 'source' for the hit piece he did on Ware last week. But they don't get called on it because, well there are different standards for wingnuts. they are not expected to tell the truth or be civil so they can get away with it.
Twenty years ago it was the right that used to be behind this type of media firestorm. There used to be an amazing sit-com called SOAP which was completely brilliant. The religious right got it taken off the air.
Imus is no great loss to culture. SOAP was. So were the numerous programs like SOAP which simply could not be made until HBO started.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
It's also one thing to fire all US attys at the start of a term and replace them with competent personnel. They fired these folks selectively, in mid-term, and replaced them with a bunch of Bible-spouting fruitloops from Jerry Falwell's "law school."
Sent from the iPad I found in your car.