Saturday, January 19, 2008

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you classic Orwellian 1984 "doublespeak":
Q: [A]re there in fact the emails missing? What’s the likelihood of their recovery versus the –

[White House spokesman Tony] Fratto: …I think to the best of what all the analysis we’ve been able to do, we have absolutely no reason to believe that any emails are missing; there’s no evidence of that. There’s no — we tried to reconstruct some of the work that went into a chart that was entered into court records and could not replicate that or could not authenticate the correctness of the data in that chart. And from everything that we can tell, our analysis of our backup systems, we have no reason to believe that any email at all are missing.

Q: Where are they?

Fratto: Where are what?

Q: Where are part of –

Fratto: Which email? […]

Q: [I]f you were asked, you would be in a position to comply with a request to produce those documents?

Fratto: Yes, which documents?
As Steve Benen describes, it's the Abbott & Costello "Who's On First?" comedy routine, only in real life! This administration clearly breaks the law ("rule of law" anyone?), but given enforcement by Congress is so lax, these guys figure what the heck, just talk in circles, obfuscate like silly, make no sense with a straight face -- just delay, delay, delay. Before you know it, we'll be out of office, in the clear.

And they will be in the clear as the Dems will not pursue this; just look at how they quickly dropped the attorney purge scandal once Gonzo exited.

Yes, the GOP has learned it can often pay to violate laws.

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