This is actually very interesting, and I am wondering why this story (below) is not getting wide play. Is it because Hillary has tied it with Obama and, folks, this really is a race....or some other tired shite like that.

(parenthetically, let me say that even though I was expecting every bit of it, the media coverage of Hillary's incredible surprise upset victory (tm) was just so fucking trite I was astonished. Even Slate, which pretends mightily to be kind of saucy, was leading with faux stories of wonderment "how did she do it," and so on. Why don't they just go ahead and anoint her already so she can be inserted easily into the bodily politic, as has always been the plan.)

Meanwhile, this is actually important and possibly very important:

White House Must Answer Questions About Missing White House E-mails,
Magistrate Judge Rules


Washington DC, January 8, 2008 - In an Order issued today, Magistrate
Judge Facciola of the United States District Court for the District of
Columbia ordered the White House to answer questions about over 5 million
missing e-mails generated between 2003-2005. Noting that the need for
information the missing e-mails is "time-sensitive" because of the risk
that stored copied of the e-mails "are increasingly likely to be deleted
or overridden with the passage of time," the Court demanded answers in a
sworn declaration by January 13, 2008 about the location of the missing
e-mails.

"To date, the White House has evaded answering questions about whether it
permanently destroyed over 5 million e-mails about issues such as
Hurricane Katrina, the firing of United States Attorneys, and the exposure
of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent," commented Meredith Fuchs, the
Archive's General Counsel. "This Order will force the Executive Office of
the President to tell the public whether it really erased key records of
the nation's history or whether it has made any effort to preserve the
information."

The order issued today come in National Security Archive v. Executive
Office of the President (EOP), et al. Previously, Judge Kennedy ordered
the preservation of EOP backup tapes and the consolidation of this case
(filed September 5, 2007) with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington (CREW) v. Executive Office of the President, et al. (filed
September 25, 2007).

To date, the White House has had the following to say about the missing
e-mails:

"I wouldn't rule out that there were a potential 5 million emails lost"
- Press Gaggle by Dana Perino (April 13, 2007)

"[W]e are aware that there could have been some emails that were not
automatically archived because of a technical issue."
- Press Briefing by Dana Perino (April 16, 2007)

"CREW has yet to provide any basis for their assertions -- be it their
original assertion, or their new claim. We are aware that some e-mails may
not have been automatically archived in the past, but they may be
available on backup tapes. Unlike what the liberal group CREW has
asserted, we've never been without a backup system. The Office of
Administration at the White House has been maintaining and preserving
backup tapes for the official email system."
- Scott Stanzel, White House Spokesman