White House E-Mail Gone Missing

WHITE HOUSE E-MAIL GONE MISSING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Editorial staff]
[Commentary] Historians eager to search through the daily minutiae of the Bush administration can expect scandalously little help from the White House’s shoddy and suspiciously gap-ridden e-mail archives. Estimates of the number of missing e-mail messages range into the millions. The gaps coincide with critical periods like the run-up to the Iraq war — and the rollout of specious intelligence — as well as the period when the White House was leaking the identity of the former C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame Wilson. Also missing are communications from Karl Rove, the president’s former political guru, and 50 other White House staffers who used e-mail accounts at the Republican National Committee. The threat to the nation’s historical record is severe. The administration’s latest archive expert has promised to get “to the bottom of this.” Representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House committee investigating the matter, may have spoken for history when he described the administration running out the clock on itself and “sandbagging” the public interest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/opinion/01sat3.html?ref=todayspaper
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