Fox News : Just Don't Call it 'Journalism'

Glenn Beck of Fox "quote" News.
Fox and its enablers
In the mainstream media

Fox's pretense of being an actual news network is hardly more convincing than, say, Milton Berle in a bra and garters posing as a woman.

By Eric Alterman / October 24, 2009

It's a sad symbol of the state of contemporary American journalism that the White House communications office is doing more to maintain the honor of the profession than are many journalists. But that's just what's happening in the contretemps over Fox News.

Interim White House communications director Anita Dunn has explained to the press that the White House plans to treat Fox "the way we would treat an opponent... As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave."

But many in Washington prefer to pretend. Howard Kurtz, whose talent for clueless conventional thinking is exceeded only by his ability to juggle his myriad conflicts of interest, thinks Obama's reaction to Fox is no different from JFK's complaints about the Herald Tribune, LBJ's unhappiness with the New York Times and various (and endless) Republican attacks on the media, so he finds it "no surprise that the Obama White House isn't happy with its coverage and is battling back."

Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik professes to hear "echoes of Nixon-Agnew" in the Obama White House and then accuses the administration of failing to "respect press freedom." The Times's David Carr concludes, "So far, the only winner in this latest dispute seems to be Fox News. Ratings are up 20 percent this year, and the network basked for a week in the antagonism of a sitting president."

What all these critics fail to address is that the administration's argument is right on the merits. Fox's pretense of being an actual news network is hardly more convincing than, say, Milton Berle in a bra and garters posing as a woman. By refusing to acknowledge Fox's open and avowed partisanship, its MSM defenders are not only flacking for Ailes & Co.; they're diminishing the work of honest journalists who try to play fair. Ask yourself:

• Would a genuine news network reproduce a Republican press release, replete with typos?
• Would a genuine news network run, over a five-day period, twenty-two excerpts from healthcare forums in which every single speaker was opposed?
• Would a genuine news network allow a producer to cheerlead, off camera, anti-Obama protesters?
• Would a genuine news network take out full-page ads to complain of insufficient coverage of antigovernment protest marches it had promoted?
• Would a genuine news network run the following headlines, trumpeting each story as a "Fox Nation Victory"?
  
  
  • Senate Removes 'End of Life' Provision
  • Congress Delays Health Care Rationing Bill
  • Anti-Tea Party Reporter Dumped by CNN
  • Obama's Drive for Climate Change Bill Delayed
  • Obama's 'Green Czar' Resigns

(Note: I have not had to quote the lunatic ravings of Messrs. Beck, Hannity or O'Reilly to make my case.)

Fox is not a news organization; it is a propaganda outlet, and an extremist one at that. Is it any wonder that according to survey after survey, Fox News viewers are among the worst informed Americans when it comes to politics, despite their obsessive interest?

A recent study by Democracy Corps finds that this audience believes "Obama is deliberately and ruthlessly advancing a 'secret agenda' to bankrupt our country and dramatically expand government control over all aspects of our daily lives," with the ultimate goal of "the destruction of the United States as it was conceived by our founders and developed over the past 200 years."

There is something to be said for collecting all the crazies in one place. As conservative pundit Reihan Salam argued on behalf of the nuttiness of Glenn Beck, his value lies in the fact that "he's a kind of national therapist for some of America's craziest people, few of whom are willing to go in for professional help." And so it's nice that ABC's John Stossel has migrated to his natural home at Fox and Lou Dobbs is said to be in talks to take his racist rants over there as well.

But the danger increases when the rest of the media allow this particularly swine-ish flu to infect their news operations, and this is the White House's legitimate concern. Why was George Stephanopoulos taking up valuable time in his interview with the President of the United States badgering him about ACORN? ("George, this is not the biggest issue facing the country. It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to," was Obama's entirely appropriate response.)

And why did Stephanopoulos persistently pester the president, in the same interview, about whether a transformational reform of our dysfunctional healthcare system -- which is on its way to eating up 20 percent of the entire GDP -- could be reduced to the Republican-friendly sound bite "a tax increase"? (Is it surprising that the interview made its way into an RNC attack ad the very next week?)

Is the fear of Fox making its way through ABC's corporate bloodstream? Recently David Axelrod appeared on Stephanopoulos's program and schooled him on the stakes involved: "It's really not news -- it's pushing a point of view. And... other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way."

I suppose we can be grateful that Obama has not been asked lately about his flag pin; but it's a sad day when our big media pooh-bahs need instruction on the values and responsibilities of their own profession by political operatives. No one's asking to censor Fox, but a little shame and scorn ought to go a long way. This, thankfully, is one of the concurrent crises facing the profession that journalists can fix all by themselves, and perhaps restore a bit of their self-respect in the process.

[Eric Alterman is a Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and Professor of Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is also "The Liberal Media" columnist for The Nation and a fellow of The Nation Institute, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, where he writes and edits the "Think Again" column, and a senior fellow (since 1985) at the World Policy Institute. This article appears in the November 9, 2009, edition of The Nation.]

Source / The Nation

Thanks to Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte / The Rag Blog

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White House : Artist's 'Impeach Bush' Ornament Nixed for Xmas Tree

Deborah Lawrence and her "Impeach Bush" ornament. Photo courtesy of Deborah Lawrence / Washington Post.
Sally McDonough, a spokeswoman for first lady Laura Bush: 'It's inappropriate and it's not being hung.'
By Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger / December 2, 2008

That controversial ornament calling for President Bush's impeachment? Won't hang in the White House after all

"Oh, dear," said Seattle-based artist Deborah Lawrence, who created the red and white ornament that salutes Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) and his support for a resolution to impeach the president. "This doesn't really surprise me. But it's disappointing that I won't get to see it on the tree."

Laura Bush asked all members of Congress to pick artists from their districts to decorate ornaments, presumably highlighting local landmarks and heroes. Lawrence, 55, used the opportunity to honor McDermott, a strong critic of Bush. The collage artist glued tiny text on the nine-inch ball thinking no one would actually read her embedded "subversive" message.

But Lawrence shared her secret protest with friends, and the news quickly spread. "An artist doesn't always get this kind of attention," she told us. "It took on a life of its own, obviously. In a way, I'm speechless."

Sally McDonough, a spokeswoman for the first lady, confirmed the ornament would not be displayed. "It's inappropriate and it's not being hung," she said. She said that when asked about the issue yesterday, the White House tree decorations were not complete. "We reviewed the ornament along with all the [other] ornaments, and Mrs. Bush deemed it inappropriate for the holiday tree."

Lawrence is still slated to attended a White House reception for the artists this afternoon.

Source / The Reliable Source / Washington Post

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Let's Bring Culture Not Only to the White House, But to All of American Government

My only question is why would we not desire a Ministry of Culture? Such a government department or agency is commonplace in other nations; why would we not want one in the US?

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

Robert Frost recites a poem at John F. Kennedy's inauguration
Rejuvenate Public Diplomacy! Bring Culture Back to the White House
By John Brown / November 7, 2008

The many reports that have appeared on the failures of American public diplomacy during the Bush years have stressed its limitations in the area of information and educational programs. What some call the third pillar of public diplomacy -- cultural programs -- has, however, been little mentioned.

This is not surprising. As I pointed out, not very originally, in a long essay, "Arts Diplomacy: The Neglected Aspect of Cultural Diplomacy," and in a recent book review on the arts and democracy, Americans are uneasy not only with federal government support for the arts, but with the very notion of "culture" (high culture with a "capital K") itself. Our Puritan roots -- and they are still alive and well -- underscore that overcoming the all-encompassing fear of predestined eternal damnation can be achieved (but not with certitude, which makes us work even harder) through "busy-ness" (business), not the "dangerously" hedonistic pursuit of pleasure (See, of course, Max Weber).

When we Americans do allow ourselves time for lassitude, we do so, as a rule, in a very planned, business-like manner (or totally "drop out" through drugs). Las Vegas, "sin city," is the best example of this pleasureless, high-strung "fun-fun-fun," which has little to do with the dolce far niente, a key -- frivolous "art for art's sake" types would say -- to savoring life in an aesthetic (meaningful?) way.

We Americans are known worldwide for our power to "entertain" (and Hollywood-style entertainment, it could be argued, is essentially about biological "relaxation" -- comparable to a satisfying bowel movement or "pigging-out" on junk food). Mindless blockbuster movies and vulgar pop "music" are among our most profitable exports.

Based on my experience in the Foreign Service (and, needless to say, personal biases), however, I have found that many foreigners, no matter what social class or education, don't understand why our official diplomatic missions show so little interest in presenting "serious" American culture to them (and course "serious" depends on whom you're talking with).

Non-Americans are aware that the U.S. does have splendid orchestras, theaters, museums. (I don't want to suggest, mind you, that America is without culture; I simply want to say that "culture" does not play the central role in American life that it plays in other countries in continental Europe, Asia, and parts of the Middle East. An Italian government official said at a White House conference that her country's Ministry of Culture was as important in Italy as is the Petroleum Ministry in Saudi Arabia. What she said about the Saudis/Italy could apply to the U.S. Let's face it: we'd rather have oil than culture).

Foreigners are struck by how little the world's most powerful nation does -- in an "official" way -- to display its art to interested persons. Interestingly but not surprisingly, when the USG does -- all too rarely -- fund cultural activities overseas, it likes to call them "workshops." That, of course, spares the State Department of being accused of frivolity by Congresspersons claiming to represent the hard-working taxpayer; artists are working, so everything's ok, no money is being wasted. Another favorite Foggy Bottom "cultural" program, by the way, is "arts management" -- and yes, that's very important business. Again, let's get 'em artists working -- i.e., producing as if in a corporation -- right.

During the past eight years, many abroad have considered America hostage to a crude & rude "cowboy president." Bush, despite his Yale and Harvard "education," has been seen as uncivilized (a word all too often used by critics of America, which is far too busy reinventing itself to be "civilized"), not only because of his barbaric, scorched-earth "shock and awe" policies (for which Americans will pay a price for many years) but also, I would suggest, because of the little respect he showed toward the fine arts (in Russia, there was a rumor that Bush, in a St. Petersburg palace, stuck chewing gum underneath the table at which he was sitting).

The favorite form of relaxation for this preppy cheerleader reformed alcoholic is physical rather than aesthetic. He loves exercise (of course, nothing wrong with that), an activity also much favored by his football-crazy Secretary of State (it was reported that a preferred topic of their discussions is sports -- as Americans were dying in Iraq?, some may ask).

Among the many not-so-subliminal "W" messages to the homeland (let us hope that word will disappear from the American language) was the following: "I, your mission-accomplished commander in chief -- while engaging in my 'free time' in communications with the Almighty -- work (and "work out") too hard during the day to listen to music or read a book" (I personally wonder if he's ever really read the Bible, one of the great literary masterpieces). Say a "prayer" and in bed by 10 pm. No nonsense.

Under Bush, the presidency was totally divorced from culture; how many persons in the world associate "Dubya" with an exhibit or concert (or an experimental artistic project on the Internet)? Very few, if any; indeed one of Bush's "pleasures" was to show Saddam Hussein's handgun to White House visitors. In all fairness to the Bushes, First Lady Laura the Librarian showed an interest in books; and a picture of Bush that will always be remembered is his holding a book -- yes, Bush with a book!: The Pet Goat, in front of students at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, on September 11, 2001, as flames ravaged the World Trade Center in New York.

Given that Americans are reluctant to support their culture overseas -- Hey, why should we? We've got Hollywood doing that! Get real! We're in the middle of a hell of a recession! First things first! -- it cannot be expected that public diplomacy will receive the funding to significantly increase its cultural programs overseas under the new administration (but then one never knows; miracles do happen).

Meanwhile, however, instead of waiting for miracles, Americans with an appreciation for the arts -- and such Americans, many of them, do exist -- should encourage the new president, Barack Obama, to make the White House a more culture-friendly place. As was the case during the Kennedy years, the residence of our Chief Executive should be a venue for cultural activities of all types, ranging from concerts to poetry readings, to which foreigners (including, needless to say, visiting heads of state and other official representatives, including in the field of culture) would be invited.

Non-Americans felt that the Kennedys were "one of them" because of the presidential interest in the arts. No reason why the articulate Barack and his elegant spouse cannot show the same interest in the enchanting sides of life while they serve in the White House (and they do not necessarily have to be culture-vultures to do so; after all Ian Fleming was one of JFK's favorite authors).

Bringing culture to the White House would do much to demonstrate to the world that Americans can, indeed, value the arts -- in our own way. True, we'll never have a Ministry of Culture (nor should we), but if our new president (a published author who has a literary bent) takes the arts seriously (and I do not mean solemnly) and shares this appreciation publicly with his fellow citizens and other inhabitants of Mother Earth, it will help show our small planet that the cowboy presidency is indeed over and that after eight xenophobic years we Americans are again trying to connect with the rest humankind -- a humankind defined, in many ways, by its greatest cultural achievements, of infinite variety throughout the world.

And, finally, how about starting off the new administration on the right cultural footing, by having a poet (say the Library of Congress's Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, who has written about the "idle maunderings poets feed upon") read at the Obama inauguration, just as Robert Frost (ironically, something of a Puritan himself) did when John F. Kennedy assumed the presidency?

John Brown, a former Foreign Service officer, compiles the Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review.

Source / Common Dreams

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NIE: Surge Has Not Put the US on a Path to Victory

US team warns of fresh ethnic violence in Iraq
By Michael Jansen / October 9, 2008

THE TEAM preparing the latest US intelligence analysis of the situation in Iraq warns that ethnic and sectarian tensions could erupt into fresh violence, reversing security and political advances made over the past 20 months.

The 16 agencies drafting the National Intelligence Estimate, due to be presented to the White House shortly, agree that the "surge" strategy has not put the US "on a path to victory" and questions the wisdom of withdrawing US troops before stability is bolstered by solid political gains on the ground.

According to leaks from the team, the main threats to security come from the ethnic power struggle between Arabs, Turkomen and Kurds in the northern oil city of Kirkuk and from the Shia-dominated government's refusal to recruit into the security forces Sunni "Awakening Council" fighters who fought al-Qaeda alongside US troops.

The still-secret report also expresses concern over the possibility that the Mahdi army militia loyal to dissident cleric Muqtada al-Sadr could end its ceasefire and resume attacks on US and Iraqi troops.

This assessment echoes a US defence department report issued last month as well as the words of former US commander General David Petraeus. US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice also admitted that "success in Iraq is not a sure thing".

The leaks from the intelligence report coincided with the publication by the International Migration Office (IOM) of its latest Displacement and Return Assessment Report. This gloomy text shows that, of the 2.8 million internally-displaced persons, i.e. domestic refugees, only 16,782 families with 100,692 members had returned to their homes by September 21st. It also shows that the number of Iraqis fleeing the country, now 2.5 million, exceeds those returning.

The IOM says that although security is improving in many areas, displaced persons are unwilling or unable to go home, and they require food, shelter and other assistance where they are living.

They have not been encouraged to return to their homes by prime minister Nuri al-Maliki's September 1st decree requiring squatters to vacate houses they "unlawfully occupy in Baghdad or face prosecution". Those who comply receive $255 per month for six months to tide them over until they find alternative accommodation.

The decree also creates centres in the capital to register returnees, provide them with a grant of $852, and resolve property disputes. While his initiatives focus on Baghdad, Mr Maliki intends to implement these measures in Iraq's other provinces.

© 2008 The Irish Times

Source / Irish Times

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Junior's Legacy : As Little As Possible

White House May Have Lost 7 Months of E-mail Since 2003
by Pete Yost / August 21, 2008

WASHINGTON - The White House is missing as many as 225 days of e-mail dating back to 2003, and there is little likelihood that a recovery effort will be completed by the time President Bush leaves office, according to an internal White House draft document obtained by the Associated Press.

The nine-page outline of the White House's e-mail problems invites companies to bid on a project to recover the missing electronic messages.

The work would be carried out through April 19, 2009, according to the Office of Administration request for contractors' proposals dated June 20. The new president will be inaugurated three months before that completion date.

Last week, the White House declined to comment on the document. On Wednesday, the White House refused to discuss internal contracting procedures but said the information was "outdated and seriously inaccurate." It would not elaborate. Nor would it say whether anyone had been hired.

"With an eye on the clock, the White House continues to drag its feet and do everything possible to postpone public access to the records of this presidency," said Anne L. Weismann, chief counsel of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a private watchdog group.

The draft document outlines a process in which private contractors would attempt to retrieve lost e-mail from 35,000 disaster recovery backup tapes dating to October 2003, a period covering such events as growing violence in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the criminal inquiry into the disclosure that Valerie Plame, wife of an administration critic, worked for the CIA.

The recovery project would not use backup tapes going back to March 2003, according to the draft document, even though an earlier White House assessment suggested that e-mail was missing from that period as well.

Industry experts point out that relying on the backup system to ensure accurate retention, preservation and retrieval of all e-mail is problematic because it does not take into account deleted e-mail.

"A backup system isn't designed to be a 100% complete inventory of all e-mails," said William P. Lyons, chairman and chief executive of AXS-One, a provider of records compliance management solutions. "It's designed to make a copy of data at a specific point in time."

The White House draft document says the number of days of missing e-mail ranges from 25 to 225, a range that industry experts say would make it difficult to bid on a recovery project.

"Generally, when the scope of the work is expected to fluctuate by a factor of nearly 10, I can only take you so seriously," said Steven L. Schooner, co-director of the government procurement law program at George Washington University.

At a hearing on Capitol Hill in February, the White House told Congress it was trying to determine how many e-mail messages were missing.

© 2008 Associated Press

Source / Common Dreams

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Justice for the King's Men May Be Served

White House Aides Can Be Subpoenaed
By David Stout / August 1, 2008

WASHINGTON — President Bush’s top advisers cannot ignore subpoenas issued by Congress, a federal judge ruled on Thursday in a case that involves the firings of several United States attorneys but has much wider constitutional implications for all three branches of government.

“The executive’s current claim of absolute immunity from compelled Congressional process for senior presidential aides is without any support in the case law,” Judge John D. Bates ruled in United States District Court here.

Unless overturned on appeal, a former White House counsel, Harriet E. Miers, and the current White House chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, would be required to cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee, which has been investigating the controversial dismissal of the federal prosecutors in 2006.

While the ruling is the first in which a court has agreed to enforce a Congressional subpoena against the White House, Judge Bates called his 93-page decision “very limited” and emphasized that he could see the possibility of the dispute being resolved through political negotiations. The White House is almost certain to appeal the ruling.

It was the latest setback for the Bush administration, which maintains that current and former White House aides are immune from congressional subpoena. On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to recommend that Karl Rove, a former top political adviser to President Bush, be cited for contempt for ignoring a subpoena and not appearing at a hearing on political interference by the White House at the Justice Department.



Although Judge Bates did not specifically say so, his ruling, if sustained on appeal, might apply as well to Mr. Rove and his refusal to testify.

The House has already voted to hold Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten in contempt for refusing to testify or to provide documents about the dismissals of the United States attorneys, which critics of the administration have suggested were driven by an improper mix of politics and decisions about who should, or should not, be prosecuted.

Judge Bates, who was appointed to the bench by President Bush in 2001, said Ms. Miers cannot simply ignore a subpoena to appear but must state her refusal in person. Moreover, he ruled, both she and Mr. Bolten must provide all non-privileged documents related to the dismissals.

Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten, citing legal advice from the White House, have refused for months to comply with Congressional subpoenas. The White House has repeatedly invoked executive privilege, the doctrine that allows the advice that a president gets from his close advisers to remain confidential.

In essence, Judges Bates held that whatever immunity from Congressional subpoenas that executive branch officials might enjoy, it is not “absolute.” And in any event, he said, it is up to the courts, not the executive branch, to determine the scope of its immunity in particular cases.

“We are reviewing the decision,” Emily Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman, said. Before the decision was handed down, several lawyers said it would almost surely be appealed, no matter which way it turned, because of its importance.

Democrats in Congress issued statements in which they were quick to claim victory in the struggle with the administration over the dismissals of the federal prosecutors and other occurences in the Justice Department, and that they looked forward to hearing from the appropriate White House officials.

“I have long pointed out that this administration’s claims of executive privilege and immunity, which White House officials have used to justify refusing to even show up when served with congressional subpoenas, are wrong,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Leahy’s House counterpart in the House had a similar reaction.

“Today’s landmark ruling is a ringing reaffirmation of the fundamental principle of checks and balances and the basic American idea that no person is above the law,” said Representative John D. Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Source / New York Times

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It Is Time for Karl Rove to Face Justice

For More Information

The Rag Blog / July 18, 2008

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Karl Rove : FOX in the Hen House?

Here is a succinct statement of what's wrong with The System, as we used to call it. Karl Rove is an election analyst for Fox News.

"Fox News host Chris Wallace also came to Rove's defense, asking rhetorically, 'Why it is that if Congress and the White House are having a fight about executive power, that that should in any way constrain an independent news organization's decision as to who is it going to have on its payroll?'"

Aren't such close ties between government and private industry a hallmark of fascism?

Bill Meacham / The Rag Blog / July 15, 2008

Karl Rove denies political ties taint Fox News role
By Steve Gorman / July 15, 2008

LOS ANGELES - Former White House aide Karl Rove denied on Monday that his close ties with Republican politics and John McCain's presidential campaign undermine his credibility as an election analyst for the Fox News Channel.

Appearing at a gathering of television critics in Beverly Hills, Rove and network executive John Moody brushed aside suggestions that Rove's continued involvement in the presidential race, informal or not, might pose a conflict in his capacity as a Fox News contributor.

Rove, the chief strategist for U.S. President George W. Bush's 2000 and 2004 election victories and former deputy chief of staff in his administration, left the White House last August and joined the Fox News team in February 2008.

"I do talk to people in politics all across the country, some of whom are very active in the campaign (but) I play no official role, or ongoing role," he said in answer to a question about whether he works for the McCain operation in any way.

"I do get phone calls," he added. "I'm having dinner later this week with a great friend of mine who just happens to be the Republican state chairman of a battleground state. He's going to be in Washington, and it's not just the quality of steak I'm going to fix him that's caused him to stop by the house and pick my brain. So that's just a reality."

Asked whether Rove was on "the honor system" regarding his contacts with top McCain campaign operatives such as Steve Schmidt, Moody replied: "He's always on the honor system. All of our employees are."

"We get most of our information about the McCain campaign from our correspondents," Moody added. "I don't think Karl would cross an ethical line like that."

Rove also dismissed the notion that his refusal to answer congressional subpoenas to testify in a probe of the Bush administration's firing of federal prosecutors amounted to too much political baggage for a network news analyst to carry.

"It is not between me and Congress," he said. "This is between the White House and Congress. This is long-standing battle over the principle of executive privilege and the ability of the president to receive advice from senior advisors and for senior advisors not to be at the beck and call of Congress to testify."

He also said that like fellow Fox News analyst Howard Wolfson, a former top strategist and communications director for Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, his job was to help viewers "better understand" the political process based on his experience.

Fox News host Chris Wallace also came to Rove's defense, asking rhetorically, "Why it is that if Congress and the White House are having a fight about executive power, that that should in any way constrain an independent news organization's decision as to who is it going to have on its payroll?"

Source. / Reuters / Yahoo! News

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With Which They Will Be Forever Tainted

Do these men look like they're worth $2 million a month?
Rewards For The Bush Faithful
by Christopher Brauchli / June 14, 2008

I am against government by crony.

Harold Ickes, resigning as Secretary of the Interior, February 1946

It was a longer hill to climb than the one climbed by John Ashcroft, but Tommy Thompson has reason to be happy with the rewards he received upon arriving at the summit. So do the 9/11 responders who were feeling forgotten.

John Ashcroft’s entrée into the world of private enterprise was announced in January 2008. It was then we learned of the procedure that the Justice Department adopted when dealing with corporations that in a perfect world might be charged with criminal conduct but in a Bush world are permitted to avoid prosecution. Culpable corporations enter into deferred prosecution agreements pursuant to which they are not criminally indicted but instead agree to have their conduct monitored for a set period by the Justice Department or someone hired by the Justice Department. Corporations like this arrangement since they avoid trial on criminal charges and the Justice Department likes it because it is full of Bush appointees who like corporations and know that they are run by good people, many of whom paid good money to help Mr. Bush get elected and don’t deserve to have their reputations sullied by criminal charges. The price corporations pay for not being prosecuted (which is not the same thing as a bribe) is that the corporation that is not being prosecuted pays a fine and has to also pay the cost of the monitor. Here is one example of how that worked in practice.

In 2005 the Justice Department began investigating five companies that make almost all the replacement hips and knees used in the United States. They were accused of paying kickbacks to surgeons. Criminal complaints were filed charging the companies with conspiracy to violate the anti-kickback laws One of the companies investigated was Zimmer Holdings, a medical supply company in Indiana. After completing its investigation the government agreed to defer prosecution of Zimmer in exchange for its agreeing to pay a fine of $169.5 million and agreeing to pay John Ashcroft for serving as monitor. Mr. Ashcroft was to be paid between $28 and $52 million for the 18 months of monitoring.

The latest crony to benefit from his friendship with George Bush is Tommy Thompson.

Tommy Thompson was the Health and Human Services Secretary from 2001 to 2005. During that time he was criticized for his failure to aggressively track and treat health problems arising out of the events of 9/11. Like Mr. Thompson, George Bush was criticized for refusing to adequately fund 9/11 notwithstanding repeated promises to the public and the victims of 9/11 that that was one of his first priorities. His 9/11-budget request for FY 2009 cut funding for those programs by 77 percent from what was appropriated in the FY 2008 budget. The 2008 budget appropriated $108 million and the 2009 budget $24 million. Commenting on the $24 million a White House spokesman said the reduced amount reflected Mr. Bush’s “continued commitment to World Trade Center Workers.” Hillary Clinton, by contrast, said: “With the announcement of his final budget, the President had one last opportunity to demonstrate that he would not forget the sacrifices made by those who responded to 9/11 and are now sick from the toxins released during those attacks. I am disappointed and saddened to see that the President chose not to acknowledge the clear health care needs of these heroes. ” Estimates of the cost of monitoring and treating Ground Zero workers are about $218 million a year.

The disappointment Senator Clinton expressed has been ameliorated by the great news that notwithstanding the cuts in the budget, the administration has generously handed an $11 million contract to Logistics Health, Inc. of which Mr. Thompson is president. He didn’t have it as easy as Mr. Ashcroft since three other companies were considered and there was always the outside chance cronyism would not prevail. It did.

Under the contract the company will be paid $11 million. It will give annual physicals to World Trade Center responders, diagnose and treat their illnesses and provide a pharmacy benefit to the injured workers. It’s not the many hundreds of millions that a concerned president might have provided. But it’s a little something and, best of all, it helps out yet another one of George Bush’s old friends. As his administration winds down it is safe to say that lots of his friends will find lucrative employment in the private sector. That’s the least he can do for those who have willingly worked for a man described by some as the worst president in history. There have to be rewards other than the guilt by association with which they will be forever tainted.

Christopher Brauchli brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu. For political commentary see my web page humanraceandothersports.com.

Source / Common Dreams

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And Why, Exactly, Is This Man Still in Office?

Libby Links Cheney to Plame Leak
by Jason Leopold / June 4, 2008

FBI documents obtained by a congressional committee indicate that Vice President Dick Cheney may have authorized his former deputy to leak the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

In a June 3 letter sent to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Rep. Henry Waxman, Democratic chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called on the Justice Department to release transcripts of interviews that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald conducted with President George W. Bush and Cheney about the leak of Plame’s identity.

Waxman said the Justice Department has turned over to his committee redacted transcripts of interviews that federal investigators conducted with former White House political adviser Karl Rove and Cheney’s former chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

According to those transcripts, Libby told federal investigators that Cheney may have told him to leak Plame’s association with the CIA to reporters, Waxman said in the letter to Mukasey.

“In his interview with the FBI, Mr. Libby stated that it was ‘possible’ that Vice President Cheney instructed him to disseminate information about Ambassador [Joseph] Wilson’s wife to the press. This is a significant revelation and, if true, a serious matter. It cannot be responsibly investigated without access to the Vice President’s FBI interview,” Waxman wrote.

Waxman’s office would not release copies of the Libby-Rove transcripts or describe the contents in any detail. Fitzgerald’s investigative interviews with Bush and Cheney — asking how much knowledge the President and Vice President had about the Plame leak — have not been disclosed.

The scandal revolves around actions taken in June and July of 2003 when Rove, Libby and other administration officials leaked information to reporters aimed at discrediting Ambassador Wilson, who had challenged the truthfulness of Bush’s pre-invasion claims that Iraq had purchased yellowcake uranium from Niger.

Read the rest of it here. / Dissident Voice

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Arianna Huffington : Scotty Come Lately

Seven takes on Scott McClellan's new book
by Arianna Huffington / May 28, 2008

Take One: What Took You So Long?

In What Happened, Scott McClellan offers withering portraits of George Bush, Karl Rove, Condi Rice, and Scooter Libby, confirms that we went to war in Iraq under false pretenses, and that we were serially lied to about the outing of Valerie Plame.

Interesting stuff, Scott. But about five years too late.

It's George Tenet déjà vu all over again. How many times are we going to have a key Bush administration official try to wash the blood off his hands -- and add a chunk of change to his bank account -- by writing a come-clean book years after the fact, pointing the finger at everyone else while painting himself as an innocent bystander to history who saw all the horrible things that were happening but, somehow, had no choice but to go along?

McClellan told the Washington Post that he wrote the book to "provide an open and honest look at how things went off course and what can be learned from it." And he told Cox News Service, "My job was to advocate and defend [Bush's] policies and speak on his behalf. This is an opportunity for me now to share my own views and perspective on things."

Great. We need all the openness and honesty we can get. But it would have been a lot more helpful if he had taken the "opportunity" when it really mattered -- say before the 2004 election, when it could have potentially saved thousands of lives.

What Happened is page-turning reading. What Didn't Happen -- namely McClellan telling the truth in service to his country rather than in service to his book sales -- is a stomach-turning disappointment.

Take Two: The Rationale for Iraq is Even Worse Than We Thought

McClellan really lets it rip on Iraq. He says that Bush led a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" to sell the war, was not "open and forthright on Iraq," managed the runup to war "in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option," "largely ignored or simply disregarded" contradictory intelligence on the war, and as the war went poorly responded by "never reflecting, never reconsidering, never compromising."

McClellan's scathing conclusion: "History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary."

Perhaps the most damning revelation regarding Iraq is McClellan's assertion that the real reason Bush wanted to invade Iraq was the "opportunity to create a legacy of greatness" by transforming the Middle East into a land of peace and brotherhood. Over 4,000 dead U.S. soldiers sacrificed for a neo-con wet dream of democratic dominoes across the region. How chilling is that?

McClellan also tosses in a pinch of Oedipal subtext: "The president had promised himself that he would accomplish what his father had failed to do by winning a second term in office. And that meant operating continually in campaign mode: never explaining, never apologizing, never retreating."

Such is the stuff foreign policy nightmares are made of.

Take Three: The Press Secretary Presses the Press

McClellan points an accusatory finger at the mainstream media -- he calls them "enablers" and says they were too easy on the administration during the selling of the war:

"The national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. ... In this case, the 'liberal media' didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."

Great point, Scotty. We and many others made it back in 2003.

It's such a great point, it caused Karl Rove to act like something nefarious has happened to McClellan, transforming him from the lie-spouting sock puppet he has "known for a long time" into somebody who "sounds like a left-wing blogger." Have anyone specific in mind, Karl?

Take Four: Rove More Turd Blossom Than Boy Genius

Speaking of Rove, McClellan's tome continues the obliteration of the Rove mystique, reminding us what an out-and-out liar Rove was and is -- more than willing to assure McClellan that he wasn't involved in the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity when, in fact, he was up to his Turd Blossom in the sordid affair, having discussed Plame with Matt Cooper and Bob Novak in an effort to discredit Joe Wilson.

McClellan also makes it clear that the indelible, says-all-you-need-to-know-about-this-administration photo of Bush looking out the window of Air Force One during his too-busy-to-stop flyover of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina was a Rove special: "Karl was convinced we needed to do it -- and the president agreed."

Take Five: Truthiness in Government

Stephen Colbert satirized the Bush approach when he coined the concept of "truthiness": the truth we want, in our gut, to exist, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

McClellan reveals how much the joke matched the reality, saying that Bush's "leadership style is based more on instinct than deep intellectual debate." Citing Bush's assertion that he honestly couldn't remember if he'd ever done cocaine, McClellan says he felt he "was witnessing Bush convincing himself to believe something that probably was not true, and that, deep down, he knew was not true."

But who needs reality when you have faith? Who needs truth when you have truthiness? As George Costanza put it on Seinfeld: "Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it."

A fantastic philosophy for a sit-com character. A disastrous philosophy for a sitting president.

Take Six: Truth in Government

According to McClellan, the Secret Service code name for the White House press secretary was "Matrix."

As any Keanu Reaves fan will tell you, the Matrix is a simulated reality used to pacify and subdue the human population in a dystopian future.

Who knew Secret Service agents have such an arch sense of humor?

Take Seven: Heckuva Job, Scotty!

On the day McClellan resigned as press secretary, Bush pictured a time down the road when he and his former aide would "be rocking on chairs in Texas, talking about the good old days and his time as the press secretary. And I can assure you, I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, 'Job well done.'"

Maybe not. Although, since, according to McClellan, Bush "has a way of falling back on the hazy memory to protect himself from potential political embarrassment," who knows?

I can already see the blurb on the back of the paperback edition of What Happened: "Heckuva job, Scotty!" - George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States

Source. / The Huffington Post

Also see White House Responds To Scott McClellan's Accusations. / The Huffington Post

And go here to read the Politico.com exclusive that broke the story and to watch a video with Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. / The Rag Blog

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Former Press Secy McClellan Bashes Bush in Memoir

President George W. Bush listens as his Press Secretary, Scott McClellan, announces his resignation at the White House April 19, 2006 in Washington, DC. Photo by Win Mcnamee / Getty Images
Politico Exclusive: McClellan whacks Bush, White House
By Mike Allen / May 27, 2008

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence.

Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” (Public Affairs, $27.95):

• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.

• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.

• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”

• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.

• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.

A few reporters were offered advance copies of the book, with the restriction that their stories not appear until Sunday, the day before the official publication date. Politico declined and purchased “What Happened” at a Washington bookstore.

The eagerly awaited book, while recounting many fond memories of Bush and describing him as “authentic” and “sincere,” is harsher than reporters and White House officials had expected.

McClellan was one of the president’s earliest and most loyal political aides, and most of his friends had expected him to take a few swipes at his former colleague in order to sell books but also to paint a largely affectionate portrait.

Instead, McClellan’s tone is often harsh. He writes, for example, that after Hurricane Katrina, the White House “spent most of the first week in a state of denial,” and he blames Rove for suggesting the photo of the president comfortably observing the disaster during an Air Force One flyover. McClellan says he and counselor to the president Dan Bartlett had opposed the idea and thought it had been scrapped.

But he writes that he later was told that “Karl was convinced we needed to do it — and the president agreed.”

“One of the worst disasters in our nation’s history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush’s presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush’s second term,” he writes. “And the perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath.”

McClellan, who turned 40 in February, was press secretary from July 2003 to April 2006. An Austin native from a political family, he began working as a gubernatorial spokesman for then-Gov. Bush in early 1999, was traveling press secretary for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign and was chief deputy to Press Secretary Ari Fleischer at the beginning of Bush’s first term.

“I still like and admire President Bush,” McClellan writes. “But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war. … In this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security.”

In a small sign of how thoroughly McClellan has adopted the outsider’s role, he refers at times to his former boss as “Bush,” when he is universally referred to by insiders as “the president.”

McClellan lost some of his former friends in the administration last November when his publisher released an excerpt from the book that appeared to accuse Bush of participating in the cover-up of the Plame leak. The book, however, makes clear that McClellan believes Bush was also a victim of misinformation.

The book begins with McClellan’s statement to the press that he had talked with Rove and Libby and that they had assured him they “were not involved in … the leaking of classified information.”

At Libby’s trial, testimony showed the two had talked with reporters about the officer, however elliptically.

“I had allowed myself to be deceived into unknowingly passing along a falsehood,” McClellan writes. “It would ultimately prove fatal to my ability to serve the president effectively. I didn’t learn that what I’d said was untrue until the media began to figure it out almost two years later.

“Neither, I believe, did President Bush. He, too, had been deceived and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me. But the top White House officials who knew the truth — including Rove, Libby and possibly Vice President Cheney — allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie.”

McClellan also suggests that Libby and Rove secretly colluded to get their stories straight at a time when federal investigators were hot on the Plame case.

“There is only one moment during the leak episode that I am reluctant to discuss,” he writes. “It was in 2005, during a time when attention was focusing on Rove and Libby, and it sticks vividly in my mind. … Following [a meeting in Chief of Staff Andy Card’s office], … Scooter Libby was walking to the entryway as he prepared to depart when Karl turned to get his attention. ‘You have time to visit?’ Karl asked. ‘Yeah,’ replied Libby.

“I have no idea what they discussed, but it seemed suspicious for these two, whom I had never noticed spending any one-on-one time together, to go behind closed doors and visit privately. … At least one of them, Rove, it was publicly known at the time, had at best misled me by not sharing relevant information, and credible rumors were spreading that the other, Libby, had done at least as much. …

“The confidential meeting also occurred at a moment when I was being battered by the press for publicly vouching for the two by claiming they were not involved in leaking Plame’s identity, when recently revealed information was now indicating otherwise. … I don’t know what they discussed, but what would any knowledgeable person reasonably and logically conclude was the topic? Like the whole truth of people’s involvement, we will likely never know with any degree of confidence.”

McClellan repeatedly embraces the rhetoric of Bush's liberal critics and even charges: “If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.

“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”

Decrying the Bush administration’s “excessive embrace of the permanent campaign approach to governance,” McClellan recommends that future presidents appoint a “deputy chief of staff for governing” who “would be responsible for making sure the president is continually and consistently committed to a high level of openness and forthrightness and transcending partisanship to achieve unity.

“I frequently stumbled along the way,” McClellan acknowledges in the book’s preface. “My own story, however, is of small importance in the broad historical picture. More significant is the larger story in which I played a minor role: the story of how the presidency of George W. Bush veered terribly off course.”

Even some of the chapter titles are brutal: “The Permanent Campaign,” “Deniability,” “Triumph and Illusion,” “Revelation and Humiliation” and “Out of Touch.”

“I think the concern about liberal bias helps to explain the tendency of the Bush team to build walls against the media,” McClellan writes in a chapter in which he says he dealt “happily enough” with liberal reporters. “Unfortunately, the press secretary at times found himself outside those walls as well.”

The book’s center has eight slick pages with 19 photos, eight of them depicting McClellan with the president. Those making cameos include Cheney, Rove, Bartlett, Mark Knoller of CBS News, former Assistant Press Secretary Reed Dickens and, aboard Air Force One, former press office official Peter Watkins and former White House stenographer Greg North.

In the acknowledgments, McClellan thanks each member of his former staff by name.

Among other notable passages:

• Steve Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, said about the erroneous assertion about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium, included in the State of the Union address of 2003: “Signing off on these facts is my responsibility. … And in this case, I blew it. I think the only solution is for me to resign.” The offer “was rejected almost out of hand by others present,” McClellan writes.

• Bush was “clearly irritated, … steamed,” when McClellan informed him that chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey had told The Wall Street Journal that a possible war in Iraq could cost from $100 billion to $200 billion: “‘It’s unacceptable,’ Bush continued, his voice rising. ‘He shouldn’t be talking about that.’”

• “As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided.”

• “History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”

• McClellan describes his preparation for briefing reporters during the Plame frenzy: “I could feel the adrenaline flowing as I gave the go-ahead for Josh Deckard, one of my hard-working, underpaid press office staff, … to give the two-minute warning so the networks could prepare to switch to live coverage the moment I stepped into the briefing room.”

• “‘Matrix’ was the code name the Secret Service used for the White House press secretary."

McClellan is on the lecture circuit and remains in the Washington area with his wife, Jill.

© 2007 Capitol News Company, LLC

Source. / Politico.com

Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow on McClellan's Book


Also see White House 'puzzled' by ex-spokesman's book bashing Bush / CNN

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Rove to Testify Before Congress ... Hah, Hah, Hah

Man, just read what this piece says: "... Conyers had negotiated with Rove's attorneys for more than a year ..." This says everything I need to know about the meaning of Congress.

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

House Committee Subpoenas Karl Rove
By Lara Lakes Jordan / May 22, 2008

WASHINGTON -- The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday subpoenaed President Bush's former chief political adviser, Karl Rove, to testify about whether the White House improperly meddled with the Justice Department.

Accusations of politics influencing decisions at the department led to the resignation last year of Bush's attorney general, Alberto Gonzales.

It's unclear whether Rove will ever be forced to testify. The White House refuses to let him or other top aides testify about private conversations with Bush, citing executive privilege to block Congress' demands.

The subpoena orders Rove to appear before the House panel on July 10. Lawmakers want to ask him about the White House's role in firing nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman of Alabama, a Democrat.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers had negotiated with Rove's attorneys for more than a year over whether he would testify voluntarily.

"It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests," Conyers, D-Mich., said in a statement. "Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate."

Conyers added: "Unfortunately, I have no choice today but to compel his testimony on these very important matters."

Both Rove and his attorney, Robert Luskin, declined to comment.

Read it here. / AOL News

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White House E-Mail Is Broken, Deliberately

The following article outlines technical reasons that the White House e-mail system failed and cannot provide evidence for an investigation into potential criminal activities that emanated from that building. That e-mails were missing, whether inadvertently through bad information technology (IT) practices or through deliberate removal of message stores and archives, has been known for some time. Not until recently, however, has the discussion turned to technical aspects of the loss.

From a purely technical perspective, it is absurd to claim that "[t]he system would require 18 months to ingest the existing backlog of messages in the Microsoft Xchange system” and “[t]he system offered users no option to distinguish between Presidential records and political or personal materials," and the National Archives says as much in the article that follows. It is particularly unfathomable to me as an IT professional for over 20 years that there would be no backup system whatsoever in place for an office as critical as the Executive Branch of the US government. Backup is the first ground-rule for any IT operation, even on the smallest scale.

Let's be clear about this: there is no such thing as "IT politics." This was pure and simple George W. Bush / Dick Cheney politics, where revealing any sort of sensitive (read: "illegal") activity in an e-mail would be strictly taboo. These clowns are criminals through and through.

From my perspective, many of the things written in this article are patently ludicrous. Writing that there are "technical issues and concerns" so vastly understates what is happening here that I cringe at the thought of the Information Technology Political Appointee department at the White House that "maintains" the computing systems there.

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

Another Rag Blogger adds:

Politics and other personal (and organizational) agendas are usually to blame for IT failure. By any reasonable measure, the guardians of White House email used poor IT practice as a tool to circumvent applicable law, avoid disclosure, and maintain control over sensitive data.

One more example of executive branch obfuscation and circumvention of law.

Bill Meacham / The Rag Blog

What the White House needs.

IT politics killed White House email project
By Michael Krigsman / May 6, 2008

Data archiving in the White House is a serious business mandated by the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which was passed following the Watergate scandal.

The Act requires the White House to maintain an historical archive of its activities, policies, and decisions. Despite this law, the White House email archiving system is a model of poor IT practice and has been called “primitive,” “inadequate,” and “not robust.” The system fails to fulfill its most basic requirements: enabling reliable backup, storage, and restore capabilities.

Email backup process. Quoted in a report by the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, White House CIO, Theresa Payton, described how White House emails are archived using a manual method called “journaling:”

Under this process, a White House staffer or contractor would collect from a “journal” e-mail folder in the Microsoft Exchange system copies of e-mails sent and received by White House employees. After retrieving copies of these e-mails, the White House staffer or contractor would then manually name and save them as “.pst” files on various White House servers.

Former White House CIO, Carlos Solari, characterized the process:

[A]s a ‘message collection system’ even though we all understand that it hardly qualifies as a ’system’ by the usual IT definition.

In a memo to Acting CIO, John Straub, in 2005, IT manager, John McDevitt, described the ad hoc system:

The current email archive process depends on manual operations and monitoring, standard operating procedures do not exist, automated tools that support the email archive process are not robust, and there is no dedicated archive storage location.

The report points out at least three fatal flaws with the manual email archive process:

• Risk of data loss


• Risk of tampering


• Inability to verify system functionality

Email archiving project failure. In 2003, the White House initiated an Electronic Communications Records Management System (ECRMS) project to automate email archiving. Booz Allen Hamilton was contracted to design the system and Unisys was engaged to test and implement it. According to the internal government program director for the project, John McDevitt, the project was completed in the spring of 2004:

According to Mr. McDevitt, this design was presented to the White House Counsel, the White House Office of Records Management, and counsel in the Office of Administration “for their concurrence” in the spring of 2004. With Unisys serving as the contractor for the implementation phase, the White House undertook “[s]ystem configuration, testing and tuning” through 2005. In early 2006, standard operating procedures were developed. In March 2006, the White House Counsel, the White House Office of Records Management, and OA counsel were briefed on the system, and in July of 2006, they were briefed “on the search and retrieval capabilities of the ECRMS solution.” Mr. McDevitt stated that the project was “ready to go live” on August 21, 2006.

Although the ECMRS was ready for use, current White House CIO, Theresa Payton, terminated the project in 2006 because:

“[t]he system would require 18 months to ingest the existing backlog of messages in the Microsoft Xchange system” and “[t]he system offered users no option to distinguish between Presidential records and political or personal materials.”

The National Archives responded with objections to these reasons, suggesting they did not present sufficient cause to abandon the completed project and revert to manual, and therefore unreliable, email backup techniques.

[snip]

Update 5/6/08 5:00pm EST: To gain further insight into this situation, I spoke with David Gewirtz, author of the book Where Have All the Emails Gone?. Here’s what David said:

White House email is broken. Their email archiving system is wildly inadequate to the point of negligence. Management of computer assets like laptops, flash drives, and BlackBerrys is completely non-existent.

Email in the White House needs to be fixed. Not because we want to give Congress a bigger stick with which to beat on Presidents, but because some really bad things could happen if it’s not fixed. There are technical issues and concerns, plus security issues and concerns that blast through the political rhetoric and even party affiliation. The practice of archiving is a technical act, while the practice of disclosing is a political or policy act.

We need to make sure we archive the White House email traffic, but that doesn’t mean confidential information must be disclosed to opposing parties or the general public.

Finally, there is breaking news out of the White House today. The White House has responded to Judge Facciola’s request for disclosure of email messages during the first term of the Bush administration. I’ve just gotten those court documents and am working my way through them now. The gist of them seems to be that the White House does not believe further document recovery is warranted. I’m going to be working my way through the full document set and will publish an analysis of it, probably tomorrow.

Read all of it here. / ZDNet

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