/Blogged by //Brad/
3:05pm PT...
//*White House Website Scrubbing Continues!
**Loads of Audio & Video Now Found to Have Been Removed from the Site!*/
** A BRAD BLOG EXCLUSIVE! **
/Paging the "Liberal" Media! Paging the "Liberal" Media! Hello? Anybody
out there?/
As reported previously here
scrubbing of various historical documents and other elements of the
White House Website is continuing! And may be wider and more systematic
than previously known. The BRAD BLOG has discovered a boat-load of audio
and video that has been removed from the website!
It's more than just Bush's "I'm not that concerned about Bin Laden"
Audio and Video (reported here
taken down. And more than the White House's "List of Coalition Members"
as reported here
After reviewing scores of pages of White House transcribed Press
Conferences by George Bush, it seems that the removal of /certain/ audio
and video clips has perhaps been strategically or systematically
orchestrated. Here's a few examples of some of the pages that have had
their linked Audio and/or Video clips removed, along with some of the
notable Bush quotes -- that "notability" is mere conjecture on my part
-- from their transcripts that perhaps the White House would prefer not
be easily available to folks anymore (NOTE: The Audio and Video links
are still on the following pages, but the content for them, when those
links are clicked upon, is no longer available.)
March 29, 2001: "Press Conference by the President"
Notable Quotes:
"Mis-underestimate" and more.
July 22, 2001: "Press Conference by President Bush and President Putin"
Notable Quotes:
"And I assured them that from a fiscal perspective, one, we're going to
hold the line on spending."
"I said my administration has had a full-scale review of the climate
issue; that we're in the process of developing a strategy as quickly as
we possibly can and one that we look forward to sharing with our friends
and allies. A strategy that begins with the notion that we want to
reduce greenhouse gasses in America."
"And they're going to find out that when I say we're interested in
reducing greenhouse gasses that we mean it."
July 23, 2001: "Press Conference by President Bush and Italian Prime
Minister Berlusconi"
Notable Quotes:
"it is an issue [stem cell research] that, on the one hand, deals with
so much hope, hope that perhaps through research and development we'll
be able to save lives. It's also an issue that has got serious moral
implications. And our nation must think carefully before we proceed.
And, therefore, my process has been, frankly, unusually deliberative for
my administration. I'm taking my time."
March 22, 2002: "Press Conference by President Bush and President Fox"
Notable Quotes:
"He is a dangerous man who possesses the world's most dangerous weapons."
"I hope that, of course, he allows inspectors to go into his country,
like he promised he would do. Not for he sake of letting inspectors in,
but to showing the world that he has no weapons of mass destruction."
April 6, 2002: "President Bush, Prime Minister Blair Hold Press
Conference"
Notable Quotes:
"We both recognize the danger of a man who's willing to kill his own
people harboring and developing weapons of mass destruction. "
"Maybe I should be a little less direct and be a little more nuanced,
and say we support regime change. "
Discussion about "direct linkage" between Al Qaeda and Saddam.
July 17, 2002: "President Bush, President Kwasniewski Hold Joint Press
Conference"
Those are just a few of the examples I've been able to find and just
/some/ of the quotes that jumped out at me as items the White House may
not like their opposition to be able to use against them during this
campaign. I'm sure you may find other now-uncomfortable Bush quotes in
some of those transcripts.
I don't pretend to know for certain precisely what they are hoping to
accomplish by doing this, other than an attempt to make it less
convenient for folks opposed to Bush to use his own words against him in
various ways (via homegrown audio and video ads, etc.). Much of the
Audio and Video they've removed, no doubt, is publically available via
C-SPAN.org and the Broadcast/Cable News operations certainly have their
own versions. None the less, it's a lot harder for a guy like me to get
a copy of say, Bush's March 22, 2002 Press Conference with Vicente Fox
from the internal video tape libraries at CNN than it would be to merely
grab it off the White House site where it had previously been available
for all Americans.
The idea that the White House may be using their governmental website
(which is owned by the People, not by George Bush or the Republicans)
for potential partisan advantage is troubling at best and strictly
illegal at worst. There is a strict legal line drawn that disallows the
use of such public facilities (White House phone lines, etc) for blatant
partisan/campaign activities.
It seems clear that the use of the White House website for this purpose
would fall under that strict statute and monkeying with it -- and the
historical documents it had previously provided -- for
political/partisan/campaign gains, I'd think, would be strictly
off-limits. I welcome the input from any political legal eagles on this.
I'll note the cautious words of Josh Marshall when he picked up on our
earlier coverage of this story
last week, "I can't say myself whether there's not some more innocent or
more technical-snafu type explanation. But it does strike me as suspicious."
A "technical-snafu" /might/ explain why some of this audio and video is
no longer there when it once was, but that benefit-of-the-doubt was
removed in at least this one instance
a "Who are the Coalition Members?" document on their special report
called "RENEWAL IN IRAQ: The Coalition" was changed to no longer even
exist in that report. The document linked from that clickable graphic
first disappeared after Cheney accused Edwards of not counting Iraqis
amongst the coalition casualties during the V.P. Debate, and after we
had informed the webmaster of the problem, the graphic element that
linked to that document was removed completely
been done purposefully by the White House webmaster as opposed to an
incorrectly specified link.
Isn't it time someone from the national media asked the Bush White House
about this? This has been reported here for about three weeks, and the
various broken links reported so far are either still broken or removed
entirely.
I'm sure you remember the hue and cry from the Right over Al Gore, back
in 2000, making some potential phone-calls to donors that may have
occurred on White House phone lines. Isn't the possible systematic
removal of archival White House documents from their website for
political purposes /at least/ as notable?
Not to mention the continuing question of what /else/ has been removed
from the historical record there that is not quite as easy to notice?!
Isn't it time the White House was asked about this? If there's an
innocent explanation, I'm sure they can give it, and restore those links
immediately. Otherwise...what's this all about?
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