Miss a day and a half and you miss a lot. Lost e-mails. Don Imus losing MSNBC. Patrick Leahy losing his cool on the Senate floor because the White House lost emails. I wouldn't be surprised in Imus lost his cool with Leahy for losing his cool because of some lost emails!
Seriously, though, is anyone really, really, REALLY surprised that, "Hey! Sorry! We lost 'em!" was the response? Of course, it might be they lost them because they were never actually being kept . . . which happens to a (ahem) violation of the law (that whole high crimes and misdemeanors thing again), but why shouldn't we give the Bush White House the benefit of the doubt, right? Beside the fact that they are corporally and institutionally incapable of telling the truth, I would suggest you go read this post by Glenn Greenwald in which we begin to see a trend in "losing" and then, miraculously, "finding" documents, videos, whatever . . .
So next Tuesday Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in the midst of an on-going tussle with the White House over the release, or perhaps even the existence, of emails directly pertaining to many of the questions Gonzalez may face. Were this a court case, and were Gonzalez a criminal defendant, his attorney might call for a continuance, or perhaps a directed verdict, or perhaps even dismissal. Of course, the prosecution would most likely return with charges of "obstruction of justice", "evidence tampering", etc., and the judge, were he or she inclined to take the lack of credibility of the defendant in to account, I would assume the case would continue, with things made that much worse for the defendant. So, perhaps in an attempt to protect Gonzalez, or even their own collective selves, from possible criminal indictment, they have only managed to make things that much worse for Gonzalez.
Well done. Seriously. It's that whole "anti-Midas" thing again. They are incapable of doing even basic intrigue and guileless corruption well.
