Once in a blue moon I get to talk about an issue that I know something about. In this case, it's email. I've been an email administrator for a long time now in one capacity or another. So I find some of this discussion re: the RNC and White House email kind of interesting.

So it sounds like Karl Rove et al have been trying to make an end run around the White House email system by funneling a lot of mail through the RNC mail system instead. Okay, this may be illegal, and it certainly violates the government policies if it has happened. Spokes-folks are saying that the rules are just too complicated (I've read 'em, they sound pretty straightforward to me - what part of "thou shalt not" do Republicans seem to find so hard to comprehend?) and it certainly is sounding to me like this was an intentional attempt to hide communications that might be frowned upon by - er --- well, the public, the law, the voters, and just about everyone else.

But what really interests me here is all the "lost" email. Today we're seeing news that the RNC has lost a lot of the email of interest. Okay, this just sounds like Ol' Karl and crew deleted their email when they felt like it, and there was originally no policy to retain all the email. It could just be sloppiness. Or it could be just plain ol' shredding of the electronic variety. We may never know, since the email may truly be gone for all practical purposes. Whether the short retention policy on email (30 days till August of 2004) was just an attempt to save on disk space, or an intentional destruction of mail isn't clear.

But now we hear that the White House has problems too and that the mail might have been better off on the RNC servers. Apparently the Plame investigation turned up the fact that the White House has lost rather a lot (5 million or so) of emails. They knew it, they developed a plan to recover it -- and then they kind of were too busy to actually do anything about it. What an odd set of coincidences. Either somebody is really incompetent (I don't doubt that possibility for a minute) or they're lying (I also don't doubt that possibility) or they're sneakily and purposely hiding evidence (I'll take door number 3, Monty!). I'm waiting to hear how they accidentally deleted the email while reaching across the desk, causing an 18-minute gap in the backup tapes. It's a higher-tech story, but still familiar.

Of more local interest, it now sounds like some of this missing email may have a bearing on the Biskupic/Thompson affair as well.

I understand that keeping all of the email for a large organization is technologically painful (really, I know ) but this all sounds a little convenient. We don't know that there's anything of interest in all this lost email, and there may not be. But wouldn't it be nice to be able to know the answer?