There seems to be absolutely no limit to the sheer effrontery of Team Bush’s effort to cover up the astounding incompetence that leads to its pattern of miserable failure.
This is funny, but it’s also serious. Republican government rests on accountability, and accountability depends on the existence of honest records of the past. The real horror of Nineteen Eight-Four isn’t Room 101; it’s the memory hole, and the denial of the independent standing of objective fact as against “the Party line,” or, as it’s now called, “the spin.” The habit of futzing with official websites so as to “edit” the past ought to be recognized as an issue of Constitutional significance, and it probably ought to be made criminal.
(Note to Democratic Senators, especially Messrs. Kerry, Edwards, and Lieberman: A rider on the White House appropriation might be a good legislative venue; the House leadership could and would keep such a proposal from ever coming to a vote, but it’s not so easy in the Senate.)