We need to call this president and all his men and simply say - you're fired.

No kidding. After all... the president serves at the pleasure of the people.

Shooter242, Daleyrocks, and others like them are not rational debaters. They are just here as part of the Right Wing Noise Machine (tm). They will keep yapping about Democratic corrupt politicians, as if the petty larceny of crook excuses the armed robbery of another. Please leave them alone in the morass of their own verbal filth.

If you want to do something constructive, seek out the MSM enablers and argue with them about their bias in promoting RWNM talking points.

Thanks.

I'd think the law would have dealt with destroying/hiding evidence early on in our history. The common sense approach would be to construe any withheld evidence as the worst possible thing the evidence could have shown and prosecute accordingly. That would seem to be the way to discourage it and make it impossible to avoid trouble by simply hiding evidence. What's the law say about this on the various levels of jurisdiction?

Earlier this week I referred to Richard Reeves' book on the Nixon presidency, Alone in the White House, which details how thoroughly Nixon wanted to restructure the American political system, not just the executive branch, centralizing all power in the White House and circumventing career officials and departmental procedures in the various agencies and departments, but even as far as creating a third party, to get around the traditions embedded there as well.

I noted that Rumsfeld and Cheney were Nixon true believers. Reagan's Iran-Contra activities, among others, showed a continuity of desire to restructure political arrangements to central power in the White House, regardless of what the law said. And thus, there are clear lines of continuity from the Nixon Adminstration, through every subsequent GOP administration to this very day.

Since this is so, it is hardly surprising to find the deletion of crucial records has become increasingly common as well. To the contrary--it would be surprising if documents didn't disappear. Removing accountability is a key genetic component of the Nixonization program. And removing records of government action is a crucial means of removing accountability.

Thanks for the link. Strange bedfellows, indeed. Although in Jefferson's case, the complete and total lack of shame and ethics hasn't been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet. Gingrich, not so much.

How WOULD a patriot act?

Isn't there one single patriot within the Bush Administration who loves this country enough to try to save it?

-- SomeNYGuy

Hell no. You sound concerned/incredulous that this might actually be the case. Why? It is apparent, and has been for some time, that those that would serve in this administration at this point believe they are saving the nation - from you and me and all of the rest of "the people." The Constitution is just a god-damned piece of paper after all. They represent the antithesis of what it means to be "American." They are anti-patriots.... actually I believe the correct term for them is traitor.

.

Brian Williams says get out of the bathrobe and leave the apartment and get off hiis back, now!

Andrew Sullivan links to Dean Barnett's find at Hugh Hewitt's:

How Self-Important Is Brian Williams?

11 Apr 2007 01:06 pm

Gob-smackingly so, of late. Pious doesn't quite capture the guy's preening vacuousness. Dean Barnett has just dug up the latest gem by Williams about the blogosphere:

"You're going to be up against people who have an opinion, a modem, and a bathrobe. All of my life, developing credentials to cover my field of work, and now I'm up against a guy named Vinny in an efficiency apartment in the Bronx who hasn't left the efficiency apartment in two years."

You looking at me? You looking at me? I wouldn't mess with Vinny, would you?

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/04/how_selfimporta.html

I think you will all find it worth reading. It's long, but well done.

Torture, Secrecy and the Bush Administration

Scott Horton

Remarks delivered at New York University School of Law's Conference on Government and Secrecy, April 12, 2006.

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/04/torture-secrecy-and-bush-administration.html

They were immediately smeared by Bush followers and then more or less rendered irrelevant by the media.

Much like the topic, this too seems to be a recurring phenomenon. Seems like the easiest way to get out of the media spotlight is to say something negative about the administration. Maybe Ms. Goodling could take a lesson.

With the Bush administration, we don't need the documents. At this point, it's not "partisan" to assume the absolute worst without hard evidence -- it's common sense.

With their track record of lies, deceit and outright criminality, the burden of proof should be on them to prove their "innocence" (as if that were even in the realm of possibility).

Did not Homeland Security request all internet servers keep email logs for two years sometime back? Did that happen?

Some NY Guy thinks:

An actual patriot would blow the whistle once and for all on this criminal, fanatical, incompetent regime. Isn't there one single patriot within the Bush Administration who loves this country enough to try to save it?

I've been hoping a savvy ethical bureaucrat would pop up, but at this point I'll even take a scheming, greedy opportunist who doesn't want to go down with the ship. I'm guessing many someones know where the email bodies are buried, and it's only a matter of time before some interesting ones come to light.

Glenn--

Brian Williams says get out of the bathrobe and leave the apartment and get off hiis back, now!

(laughing)

Yeah, Glenn, ya big meanie! Don't you know Brian Williams has spent (sniffle, sob) all his life (sob) "developing credentials" and now you sit in your efficiency apartment with your "opinions" and your "modem" and make his life really hard, man. Somebody end the madness!

As a formally trained computer technician I can tell you that the losing of a file of any kind can be retrieved by simply using an MSDOS command path file name in order to retrieve said file.Any novice tech knows this.

If a file is actually lost it must have been taken off the computer by typing the correct code to do this, or if the computer totally crashes out.

The FBI uses this technique all the time in cases related to computers.

When you just push a delete button to clear a file on a computer you can always go back and retrieve the file later using MSDOS.

More of our new freedoms the war on terror has brought us through the criminals that govern us.