The problem with the email scandal

Something is really bothering me. Its the whole 'Karl's emails were deleted' issue.

First of all, in this day and age, emails can't just 'be deleted'; they can be restored from just about any failed hard drive, and exist in many forms and in many places throughout the internet and on recipients' computers.

So... if every one of Karl's emails are truly gone, there must have been a concerted effort to destroy those emails - a very comprehensive operation which would undoubtedly have involved the NSA, because they apparently keep everything. The sheer volume of missing emails implies that they have done just that.

"You can't erase e-mails, not today," Leahy said in an angry speech on the Senate floor. "They've gone through too many servers. Those e-mails are there -- they just don't want to produce them. It's like the infamous 18-minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes."

Jawohl. So many crimes to hide... no doubt.

But that isn't even the part of the story that is eating at me right now.

Its the 'secret room' at AT&T; the fact that the rest of us great unwashed have to put up with the government nosing into every single detail of our personal lives - illegally - and storing every email (seemingly forever) on some government, or worse, subcontractors' database.

We took no public oath of disclosure, but everything we write is being read and saved somewhere by people we have never even met. Our crime? We are Americans, and apparently there are those within our government who are afraid of us. The mastermind? Well that's exactly the point I now speculate. Who could possibly slip this net, if not the very guy holding the net? Unless of course he is simply lying -- a very real possibility, because like most people in the George W. Bush White House, he wouldn't know the truth if it bit him. Truth is something to be invented for partisan gain.

Think about it. According to the White House, Karl Rove can actually still lose email. The rest of us can't. Who is he - Joseph Goebbels? Is he the mastermind behind this 'spy on all Americans' scheme? Does the NSA work for him? Else... wouldn't the NSA simply supply Karl's emails from their massive electronic archive?

And what of AT&T? Don't Karl's emails go through that same 'secret room' that siphons off the rest of our emails? Did Karl get a pass from AT&T as well? Or was this entire (illegal) plan his idea in the first place?

And what does that really indicate about our Executive Branch and their partisan plan for outright dictatorship? What is in Karl's emails that would warrant this much concerted effort to destroy them?

If they can't find Karl's emails when they undoubtedly have all of mine - and believe me, I'm an absolute nobody in Indiana - we have a real Constitutional crisis on our hands. But then again, we already knew that.

Subpoena them all, then hold Karl Goebbels in contempt for obstruction of justice if he can't produce. If he can produce them when faced with jail time - he's lying to us again. Business as usual.

The answer to this question - whether he can or can't produce them - will tell us more than the contents of the emails themselves. If he can't produce emails in this day and age, a very real and pervasive cover-up is in effect... obstruction of justice.

Surely that at least is impeachable. Surely you can throw a 'public servant' in jail for that.

Doesn't that Monica Lewinsky thing look more and more ludicrous by the day?

Obstruction of Justice

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source
obstruction of justice
n. The criminal offense, under common law and according to the statutes of many jurisdictions, of obstructing the administration and due process of law.

Are you just a little fed up with Rove and his blatant disdain for the American judicial system? I'm referring to the existing system as designed by the founders of our country - when it works - and not Rove's version of 'justice' that he was attempting to create when he hijacked it for partisan gain.

The latest from the White House, where the usual defense has been 'I can't remember that,' is the admission that possibly thousands of private emails - emails that legally should have gone through official channels in accordance with the Presidential Records Act - are now 'lost'. Even in this day when virtually ANY email can be extracted from any hard drive, and somehow the NSA is able to keep tabs on the entire population of our country and track all of our email correspondences - and keep copies of them - we are to believe that Karl's official emails are off limits to Congress and to the people.

"Lost."

Right.

Ironically, these emails are the ones that shed light on what really happened during the firing of eight prosecutors who wouldn't operate under GOP partisan lockstep. How convenient, Karl! I can see your puffy, smirking face -- you're laughing at them, aren't you? Laughing at Waxman and all of Congress. "Can't touch me!"

We'll see about that.

Washington - The White House said Wednesday that it may have lost what could amount to thousands of messages sent through a private e-mail system used by political guru Karl Rove and at least 50 other top officials, an admission that stirred anger and dismay among congressional investigators.

The e-mails were considered potentially crucial evidence in congressional inquiries launched by Democrats into the role partisan politics may have played in such policy decisions as the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

Mr Waxman, I think a little jail time is in order at this point. Its amazing the things people suddenly 'remember' when they find themselves sharing a jail cell with Bubba. Can you imagine Rove in jail? Don't you think its time we finally made that rosy daydream a reality?

Since 2001, about 50 staffers e-mailed using the system, he said. One former White House staffer told National Journal recently that Rove uses his RNC e-mail account for 95% of his e-mail communications.

He's laughing at you Waxman. He's laughing at all of us. He's been laughing his entire life, and he is quite sure he is above the law, and so very cynically smart that he will get away with it.

How long are you going to let this guy make a mockery of our legal system? He's a criminal. We all know it. We managed to lock Capone up on tax evasion -- I think we can handle Karl... if you have the will.

God knows the American people are about 5 years past ready to see this man in handcuffs. Just ask Valarie Plame - and the other undercover CIA agents he compromised.

Gonzogate, Iraqnam, rivers, and erased... emails?

Gonzogate

Pardon me in advance, if I am wrong... if my memory is bad, because I was really quite young at the time of the last major, presidential scandal in Washington. I'm referring to the 'real' one,' not that sex charade. I'm referring to the one that included a war, broken laws, refused subpoenas, whistle-blowers, leaks and missing evidence. I believe it was called Watergate.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A 16-day gap in e-mail records between the Justice Department and the White House concerning the firing of U.S. attorneys last year has attracted the attention of congressional investigators.

Does this '16-day gap in e-mail records' business look familiar? As in perhaps, the '18-minute gap in the Nixon tapes? History is so unoriginal.


Iraqnam

I recently heard that Jeremy Scahill's new book: 'Blackwater,' is taking the country (OK; the handful of actual book readers remaining on the planet) by storm. It is about the 'Blackwater army', or Blackwater USA, a small, North Carolina-based private security company now operating under the government's protection within Iraq:

"What we have right now is something worse than the wild, wild west going on in Iraq," Callahan says. "Blackwater is able to operate over there in Iraq free from any oversight that would typically exist in a civilized society. As we expose Blackwater in this case, it will also expose the inefficient and corrupt system that exists over there."

It appears Blackwater is currently in a little legal trouble here at home:

Blackwater is facing a potentially devastating battle--this time not in Iraq but in court. The company has been slapped with a lawsuit that, if successful, will send shock waves through the world of private security firms, a world that has expanded significantly since Bush took office. Blackwater is being sued for the wrongful deaths of Stephen "Scott" Helvenston, Mike Teague, Jerko Zovko and Wesley Batalona by the families of the men slain in Falluja.

A river runs through... everything

Once again, I can't help but get flashbacks, but this time I don't have to go back nearly as far - and its really just... the names.

What is it with rivers lately?

Has anyone else noted the rampaging ironies here? Especially where water, or more specifically rivers are concerned. While Clinton was in office, we had a 'Whitewater' controversy (now, mere water under the bridge.) Fast forward, Bush is in office, and we have a 'Blackwater' controversy. At first glance, this is a bit surreal.

Has someone been dumping oil in the Potomac? Have the 'Whitewater' rapids suddenly turned black with leaching crude?

(Probably a Texan. Those dirty Republicans...)

For those of us who didn't believe all issues were either 'black or white;' this proves we were mistaken. Or maybe this only applies to 'river' controversies, as they apply to presidential administrations (or flowing in the background of presidential administrations. You will notice that no one actually gets their feet wet in these controversies.)

And now we are treated to the resurrections of both Kenneth Starr (Blackwater's legal counsel,) and Newt Gingrich - who now admits he was committing adultery the entire time he was pointing fingers at Bill Clinton. OK, Newt isn't a river, I just wanted to throw that in here. Newt never found his Whitewater justice, but he sure managed to pull off the hypocritical feat of the political century.

Is this tabloid material - or am I dreaming?

Why on earth did the media spend weeks droning on and on about Anna Nichole Smith, when there was a veritable river of sensationalism flowing out of Washington?

"Oh Blackwater, keep on roll'n..."

I'll bet this Blackwater river turns out to be just as inscrutable as the Mighty Mississippi - or Alberto Gonzales, for that matter.

"...he must know somethin, but don't say nothin..."

Lies, lies... and yet more lies...

New unreleased e-mails from top administration officials show the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was raised by White House adviser Karl Rove in early January 2005, indicating Rove was more involved in the plan than previously acknowledged by the White House.

The e-mails also show Attorney General Alberto Gonzales discussed the idea of firing the attorneys en masse while he was still White House counsel - weeks before he was confirmed as attorney general.

The e-mails directly contradict White House assertions that the notion originated with recently departed White House counsel Harriet Miers and was her idea alone.

Really now. Didn't Tony Snow assure us - only Tuesday - that:

Miers had suggested firing all 93, and that it was "her idea only." Snow said Miers' idea was quickly rejected by the Department of Justice.

Where does it begin? Where will it end? Stay tuned!

I may actually have to watch C-Span tomorrow. Truth is much, much more interesting than fiction. It appears a little more truth leaks out every day - always putting the 'lie' to the White House's claims of the day before.

Is Iraq the 'new Vietnam?' Is this 'the new Watergate?' Did Bush grow up idolizing Richard Nixon? (Oh wait, I forgot... Rummy and Cheney actually worked for Nixon! I get it!)

At last... a reality show for intellectuals. Its history... LIVE, coming to you from the United States Senate!