Markets Vote 'No' on Bush

Earmarks Watch

Robert Pear writes in the New York Times: "President Bush is unlikely to defy Congress on spending billions of dollars earmarked for pet projects, but he will probably insist that lawmakers provide more justification for such earmarks in the future, administration officials said Monday.

"Fiscal conservatives in Congress and budget watchdogs have been urging Mr. Bush to issue an executive order instructing agencies to disregard the many earmarks listed just in committee reports, not in the text of legislation. . . .

"Lawmakers, including the House Republican whip, Roy Blunt of Missouri, have cautioned the White House that a furor over earmarks could upend Mr. Bush's hopes for cooperation with Congress on other issues, including efforts to revive the economy."

White House (Missing) E-mail Watch

Elizabeth Williamson and Dan Eggen write in The Washington Post : "For years, the Bush administration has relied on an inadequate archiving system for storing the millions of e-mails sent through White House servers, despite court orders and statutes requiring the preservation of such records, according to documents and technical experts.

"President Bush's White House early on scrapped a custom archiving system that the Clinton administration had adopted under a federal court order. From 2001 to 2003, the Bush White House also recorded over computer backup tapes that provided a last line of defense for preserving e-mails, even though a similar practice landed the Clinton administration in legal trouble.

"As a result, several years' worth of electronic communication may have been lost, potentially including e-mails documenting administration actions in the run-up to the Iraq war."

What possible reason was there to abandon an archiving system that worked? Who knows? The official White House line, despite the evidence to the contrary, is: What missing e-mails?

Pete Yost writes for the Associated Press: "Apparent gaps in White House e-mail archives coincide with dates in late 2003 and early 2004 when the administration was struggling to deal with the CIA leak investigation and the possibility of a congressional probe into Iraq intelligence failures."

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, one of the two groups suing the White House over the e-mail issue, is out with an analysis of national news on the dates for which there are missing e-mails.

Editorial Watch

The Cleveland Plain Dealer writes that "the possibility that there's a black hole that swallowed millions of emails in the heart of the Bush administration's historical tenure is troubling. The fact that this gap hasn't induced the Bush administration to move quickly to close all its potential archival loopholes - and figure out what is missing and what could be backed up from existing servers and backup tapes - is astounding.

"The realization, from a White House official's court filing this week, that instead of seeking to fix the problem, the White House is trying to duck responsibility and escape court or public oversight is simply outrageous. . . .

"It merits immediate action from the courts and Congress to compel this administration to comply with the law and to correct the problem."