Bush, the Blessed Peacemaker

But, she writes: "Consistent with industry practices relating to tape media management for disaster recovery back-up systems, these tapes were recycled prior to October 2003."

As for the missing emails, her answer is essentially: What missing emails?

"I am aware of a chart created by a former employee . . . that purports to identify certain dates and EOP [Executive Office of the President] components for which the chart's creator appears to have concluded that certain EOP components were missing emails on certain dates in the 2003-2005 time period. Specifically, the chart appeared to have concluded that some components on some dates had either (i) a lower-than-expected number of emails preserved in the normal archiving process, or (ii) no emails preserved in the normal archiving process," she writes.

But her office "has reviewed the chart and has so far been unable to replicate its results or affirm the correctness of the assumptions underlying it."

Payton says the White House has "undertaken and independent effort" to determine what's missing. "That process is underway and we expect the independent assessment to be completed in the near term."

In a statement from one of the plaintiffs, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, chief counsel Anne Weismann said: "With this new filing, the White House has admitted that although it has long known about the missing emails, it did nothing to recover them, or discover how and why they went missing in the first place."

Sheila L. Shadmand, counsel for the other plaintiffs, the National Security Archive, said: "It is a victory to finally get the White House to respond to the Archive's claims, but somehow I suspect we will have many battles ahead of us to preserve the documentary history of the government for the American public."

Torture Tapes Watch

Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus write in The Washington Post with the latest on the destruction of video recordings of intelligence officers using simulated drowning to extract information from suspected al-Qaeda members.

"Congressional investigators have turned up no evidence that anyone in the Bush administration openly advocated the tapes' destruction, according to officials familiar with a set of classified documents forwarded to Capitol Hill. 'It was an agency decision -- you can take it to the bank,' CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said in an interview on Friday. 'Other speculations that it may have been made in other compounds, in other parts of the capital region, are simply wrong.'

"Many of those involved recalled conversations in which senior CIA and White House officials advised against destroying the tapes, but without expressly prohibiting it, leaving an odd vacuum of specific instructions on a such a politically sensitive matter. They said that [then-director of clandestine operations, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr.] then interpreted this silence -- the absence of a decision to order the tapes' preservation -- as a tacit approval of their destruction.

"'Jose could not get any specific direction out of his leadership' in 2005, one senior official said. . . .

"The tapes were discussed with White House lawyers twice, according to a senior U.S. official. The first occasion was a meeting convened by Muller and senior lawyers of the White House and the Justice Department specifically to discuss their fate. The other discussion was described by one participant as 'fleeting,' when the existence of the tapes came up during a spring 2004 meeting to discuss the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, the official said."

The Gates Effect

Bryan Bender writes in the Boston Globe about Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's considerable effect on the Bush administration: "[I]n an alliance with his former aide, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has helped to roll back some of the most hawkish stances of the first six years of the Bush presidency - on the use of torture, US-Iranian relations, and the policy of preemptive war that Vice President Dick Cheney, [former defense secretary Donald H.{rcub} Rumsfeld, and others espoused, according to interviews with current and former administration officials and private analysts. . . .

"'What you have is a change in the climate around the president,' said Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser for the first President Bush, when Gates served as his deputy and Rice oversaw Soviet affairs.

"Given his background as a former CIA analyst and president of a major university, Gates has a 'different kind of personality and outlook' than his highly ideological predecessor, Scowcroft said. Gates's influence has helped replace the 'formidable pressure' exerted on the president by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their neoconservative allies with 'a much more nuanced foreign policy.' . . .

"'There is no more talk about spreading democracy' by force, said Joseph Nye, a former assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration who teaches at Harvard University. 'Bob is a very practical, sensible person. I think they would have been a lot better off if he had been the defense secretary in 2001.'"

On the Lighter Side

The Post's Michael Abramowitz marvels at the spectacle of the president and top aides -- including "National Security Council staffer Elliott Abrams, better known in Washington as possibly Israel's staunchest supporter inside the White House" -- happily donning full-length, fur-lined robes -- gifts from the Saudi King.

CBS's Bill Plante offers a video tour of the filing center.

Martha Raddatz blogs for ABC News about being turned away from the Marriott hotel gym in Riyadh -- because it's only open to men.

In the Loop

Washington Post columnist Al Kamen picks the winners of his contest to guess the real target of the suspicious fire in Vice President Cheney's office last month. "One thing is clear: There's a lot of anger out there. Dozens of entries referred to the devil, torture and waterboarding tapes, sparks from an office door left open to the gates of hell and such," Kamen writes.

Among the winning entries:

"Federalist 47, regarding the tyranny of the executive." -- Thurgood Marshall Jr., a Washington lawyer and Clinton White House Cabinet secretary.

"Cheney's two-page-long list of other words to call Sen. Patrick Leahy." -- Dave Grimaldi, Washington lawyer and former House aide.

"List of future hunting partners." -- Jay B. Tabor of Martinsburg, W.Va.

Late Night Humor

Jon Stewart pores over video from Bush's trip and concludes: "A lot of the greetings he got in these countries appeared to disintegrate into some kind of international game of how silly can we make America's president look?"

Stewart also had quite a bit to say about Bush's statement to troops in Kuwait on Saturday that "There is no doubt in my mind when history was written, the final page will say: Victory was achieved by the United States of America for the good of the world."

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Cartoon Watch

David Horsey on Bush's Saudi hypocrisy.