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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
That would be a prosecutable offense, wouldn't it? I know we'd all be outraged if we found out something like that had happened in recent history...
This sure sounds like obstruction of justice to me.
I'm sure that the Attorney General will get to the bottom of this a prosecute all the guilty parties.
Oh, wait a minute . . .
. . . nevermind.
is that none of this is in any way new
Nevertheless hopefully we will soon get a lesson on the etymology of the phrase "the last straw"!
A giant homework-eating dog in the White House basement.
I was going to post a "countdown to Sandy Berger reference in ..." comment, but there was a premature Jack elation.
Pay no attention to that man behind the cretin.
The Administration has already done the worst damage it could to both the government and society short of a nuclear launch against US soil:
What they haven't destroyed, they've left commanded by and seeded with unqualified antigovernment hacks.
What they haven't undermined, they've left completely underfunded.
What they haven't discredited, they've so demonized that trust is all but impossible.
Doubtless all the evidence - material and electronic - still exists somewhere and can be recovered. The question becomes will it make any difference?
Nobody trusts them, everybody acknowledges they're a corrupt bunch of crooks, and the full damage they've done will take years to undo.
The worst of it is the principles, for all their crimes, will possibly get away unpunished. One can only hope the new Democratic majority will extract at least some sanctions upon them. One hopes.
The sole justification for every Republican cover up and obstruction of justice forever more.
Just like Clinton justifies their every wrong doing.
Good stalwart Conservatives, whose variable morality is based solely on what they perceive anyone else has done. Well guys, Stalin executed millions, and was never punished for it. Guess that's ok too now in Conservatopia.
Sandy Berger wasn't dealt with and punished.
Can I be the first one to say this today?
Worst president ever.
...of issuing documents to his subjects.
Whether high arbiter or wronged widow, the King commands his own paperwork at his own pleasure.
(Though, it must be noted, Squire Kristol, of the Monarch Council, will be handed the papyrus if it pleases the King).
Please keep this in mind while soliciting King George for documents he feels he is under no obligation to present you in the first place.
Or just plain incompetence?
This admin. (and the bungling zealots they've put in charge of every gov't function) have proven they are unable to do anything right.
Add this to the epidemic of early Alzheimer's affecting every Bush appointee (none seem to be able to remember anything anymore), and doesn't it seem plausible they really are losing about half the paperwork they generate?
After all, how many billions of dollars intended for Iraq have they lost track of?
A few minutes searching a legal database for sanctions involving discovery will tell the reader something. There are few things as hard to delete as an embarrassing e-mail, or worse an incriminating one. Indeed one of the major problems with document retention is that e-mails cannot be disposed of. They exist on numerous servers and if on numerous servers, they exist on numerous back-up tapes, indeed even RIM has historical copies. Moreover, one of the key features of Blackberry's etc., is that they synchonize to personal computers, so copies are on those machines, in the hard drives, on the back-ups.
What this comes down to is that someone does not want to look for the e-mails even a little, tiny bit farther than their Blackberry Inbox.
This is something that lawyers are familiar with, and recommend the use of the Mark 1 mouth and ear to reduce the related problems with. If you do not want to produce something do not e-mail it. The issue here is not that the e-mails are gone, it is that someone has an idea of what they contain and does not want to find out.
Do not just subpoena the White House and RNC -- send a subpoena to Research In Motion (Blackberry) and a document retention warning. My recollection is that RIM backs up its servers and has years worth on the tapes. It has come up in cases already!
Perhaps the Emperor will establish a Blue-Ribbon Fact-Finding Commission of Experts and have them hunker down for - oh - 18 months or so, at which time they will return with a several-hundred-page marketing document which recommends that the Emperor appoint a "Documentation Czar" to take "full responsibility" for the missing documents. That way, we can be sure get all of these "filing procedures" figured out before the next Democratic administration comes into power.
related: Yesterday's Mark Fiore cartoon "M.C. Rove" is great. "All we gotta say... I don't recall."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/04/11/fioremcrove.DTL
"there was a premature Jack elation"
Had a lousy couple of days, so just wanted to say thanks for that comment. Brought me a laugh, and appropriately in the grand tradition of Vonnegut, too. Thanks, I needed that.
No kings,
Robert
Suppose the Democrats take the White House in '08. To the extent that Bush administration has complied with the Presidential Records Preservation Act (or whatever it is call), couldn't those records be turned over to the AG to prosecute the crimes committed by the former administration?
It would also seem that a Democratic president could declare the officials of the Bush administration terrorists and ship'em off to Gitmo.
What has the Bush administration got planned to protect themselves for the power of the unitary executive when the next president isn't a Republican?
They got all of Enron and Arthur Andersen's paper-shredders at Clearance Prices!
I am appalled that Sandy Berger destroyed evidence related to the 9/11 investigation. He should have been put in prison for a long time and the exact details of what transpired meticulously investigated.
What I don't understand is how this became a rallying cry for supporters of the republican party. It was the Bush administration that let him skate with only community service and seemed to have no interest in getting to the bottom of what I basically consider treasonous behavior on Berger's part.
Maybe, just maybe, this huge clusterfuck is a bit more nuanced than party line politics.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
