Homer Meet Fred. Fred, Homer.

When the Bush administration took office initially under a fat, greyblack cloud of vote fraud controversy, their transition to the White House included a total scrapping of a standardized email archiving system. This preservation of executive branch inner correspondence is law and, as of 1993 was extended to include email records. In 1994 President Bill Clinton's administration took it a step further and had a standardized archiving program installed which also had safeguard capabilities to prevent loss of information.
The Bush White House immediately transitioned to Microsoft Outlook and Exchange, which was completely incompatible with the existing archiving and preservation system and moved record keeping squarely into the Flintstone era. The new system kept emails in a "journal", essentially a folder containing Executive Branch emails. Later staffers would pore over the folders, pull out emails and, if they were chosen to be preserved, MANUALLY name them and store them. A lot like the prehistoric beaked creature pounding out the headline on a slab of slate actually. Ludicrous. Worse, journal files were spread across several servers. Add to that no standard naming convention for the emails that were preserved. Keep going? Improper access controls insured that anyone with access to White House servers, had access to the files. And going? No logging system in place. No record of who accessed/named/saved/deleted/tampered with these files. To anyone doing a minor investigative analysis (me), this required by law system of record preservation is clearly light years away from the most basic adequacy. Wilmmaaaaaaaaaa!
Astoundingly, in an era of self-proclaimed heightened security, these Flinstonian Emporers employ a record keeping system that is vastly cratered, fraught with access issues and severely prone to LOSS OF INFORMATION!
DOHHH!
Ready for the numbers? The White House Office of Administration estimates that in the period from 2003-2005, FIVE MILLION emails have been lost. There are gaps of days where everything is gone. 12 Days from Bush, 16 Days from Cheney. ENTIRE stretches of time where ALL emails have been "lost". That's just two years.

Homer and Fred are currently being sued to restore what is already lost by the Citizens for Responsibilty and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive.

Mr. Slate and Monty Burns are getting restless. Their stooges are stonewalling and attracting too much attention.

Clothes Make the Woman

Sarah Palin has spent the weekend after the election sorting her clothes. The hockey mom. Going through her stuff to see if she can rustle up tens of thousands of dollars worth of missing clothes.

"Hmmm, is this brand new, and shucks it's gorgeous, Neiman Marcus blazer mine or did I buy this at the Kohl's in Anchorage last year honey?"

In politics, the key is always money. As an old saying goes, if the question is "Why?" the answer is always "Money". In Governor Palin's case, the down-home painted portrait has been chipped away to reveal a canvas of political opportunism and hypocrisy.
The question of 2012 has been rising from the cornfields of "real" America's candidate. Will she run? Is she the future of the Realpublican Party?

I offer the clothes sorting as defining evidence in the case against.

Governor Palin has emphatically denied that she asked for anything more than a Diet Dr. Pepper while being dragged around the McCain mudpit. In logical terms alone, the news that she is home sorting through her clothes suggests otherwise.

-Did the Secret Service pack her bags for her without her prior knowledge? If so, she must have had to answer "Yes" to the security screener while taking off her $1500 shoes at the airport. A convergence of mid level security then surrounding her and going through her carry-on. The looted cosmetics and sachets splayed on the conveyor belt. "How the heck did that get there? Aw, Trig musta grabbed it when we were talkin to that Joe Sixpack fella on 5th Avenue."
-Did Ms. Palin arrive home, throw her bags up on the bed and forget them for 4 days? Surely the regular gal hockey mom does not have assistants unpacking her stuff? So, assume she does.
-Are the missing clothes (roughly 2/3 of the original purchased stash) still folded neatly at the bottom of the steamer trunk, or are they neatly and unnoticeably interspersed with the Wasilla hockey jerseys, Martha Stewart collection blouses and Gubernatorial suits?

According to Sarah's Dad, she is "frantically" going through her stuff. Daddy also tugged at our real American heartstrings when he added that we understand the chaos because, you know, kids lose underwear. We feel your pain.

This entire circus will be, and is being trivialized to the folksy downright silly mantras that are already contained in the story. It will be cast as sexist, unimportant etc etc. It is none of these. This charade is an INDICATOR. We Americans love indicators. We love to discuss people's foibles and especially those that trend toward the downward spiral. Ultimately, that is why it is news.

We are a nation of bright, common sense in a crisis folk. We can surely see the horse has left the barn.

The clothes will never be worn again, much less "found". The Governor will fade slightly to hone her woeful public persona skills and she will return to attempt a populist run at the most powerful position on Earth. This shopping spree and ensuing vaudevillian search for the goods will be a distant memory.

Yet, the seed has been sown. Any onlooker with a rationale can surely see the Emporer has no clothes. This particular candidate for the future and her handlers are busy concocting a story/excuse/blame and not looking for missing property. This political bottle rocket has unwittingly built her own bridge to nowhere.

And my guess is she's pissed she can't get into that helicopter with her new hunting togs.